Rattlingz

Opening the BIG door

2011-11-21T13:02:00.002-07:00

How many times have we been to a church service where we heard words something like this:

"Open your Bibles to (insert reference here) and follow along as I read ... "

Reading the aforementioned passage might take as long as 3 minutes if the portion is long or the speaker particularly inclined to dramatic or editorial comments along the way. Then follows 30 minutes ... or 45 ... or 60 ... or ... ... ... of the application of (manmade) literary and theological "tools" designed to help "unlock" for us the secrets of the verses previously read.

Before I continue, let me just say that there is nothing wrong with this scenario, in and of itself. But, as the primary application of Scripture in community gatherings, it is sadly incomplete and inadequate to the task of unleashing the power of the Word.

The true power of the written Word of God is only "unlocked" by the key of speech - by speaking it aloud in the presence of others. Simply reading it here and there as a springboard into an explanation of its meaning is not enough. We have trained our church communities to expect that the "good stuff" comes after the reading.

But if we only knew how to look for it, how to savor it, how to wait upon Him to unleash it! Then we might find that the very power and manifestation of God will leap into our midst from the pages of a single open Bible read aloud with no further agenda than simply speaking the Word into our community.

Literary tools, rules of interpretation, laws of theological application - these are all tiny little doors into the treasure room. We can peek through and see some of the stuff. We can reach in with a single hand and grab some of it. We can pull some of it out, intact and beautiful. Some we simply cannot get through the small opening, no matter how hard we try. And much of it we can force through the tiny handhole, but not without breaking, crushing, and deforming it as a result.

But reading the Word aloud, with no intent other than to savor its richness - this can unlock the whole gigantic front door and let the treasures within spill out and overwhelm us. How rich it could be to speak a passage of Scripture into the congregation, to sing it in new songs, to simply relish its power to transform, to heal, to energize ...

There is no reason to stop teaching and expounding the Word as we do. But there is every reason to rethink making this procedure our primary application of Scripture in every gathering of the body.

When the Spirit of God was finished "brooding" in the darkness of the early moments of creation, he did not then write a scientific paper on the nature of photons. He instead spoke light into existence.

F. Kefa Sempangi, in his book A Distant Grief, tells of a young Ugandan child who witnessed the unspeakably brutal torture and murder of his parents in their own home. When he was found, this child refused (or was unable) to speak. One arm was locked into place, covering his face. He was taken to an orphanage and laid in a bed, where he remained silent, with his arm still covering his face. And then Mr. Sempangi read to him all through the night from the book of John. He employed no literary or theological tools of interpretation to explain to the child how he could obtain victory over the trials that beset him. He simply read the Word - spoke it into the atmosphere in the little room. And gradually the arm relaxed, the eyes closed in sleep. Not long after, when Kefa visited the orphanage again, he found the young boy playing soccer with his friends.

This irresistible power of the Word is all but lost upon today's Industrialized Church, for we have come to see it as something in need of explanation and illumination to us. We want someone to shed light upon the Scriptures. But, as John has already explained to us:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.He was with God in the beginning.Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5).

The Word is Light. The written word should be for us a manifestation of the Living Word, lest we fall into the same darkness in which the religious leaders of Jesus' time found themselves living. They had the greatest access to, and spent the most time studying, the Scriptures. And yet, it was they, the ones most familiar with the written word, who failed to recognize the Living Word when he walked and worked and taught among them.

How many times have we been to a church service where we heard more of the Word of God than of the words of a man trying to explain it?

Knowing the Creator

2011-11-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that there will come a time when we realize that art is as important as science to truly understanding the nature of the universe.

Likewise we will find that theology can reveal only just so much of the Creator of that universe. The rest is pure poetry and sculpture and painting and music and dance and ...

It's time to stop looking at our God as merely the Inventor of the heavens and the earth, and to see Him fully as the Creator. Because invention is only the technical side of creation. And theology is only the technical side of spirituality. Spiritual technology is a great and necessary component of our relationship with our God. But its mighty and lofty facts become almost lies when we accept them as the entirety of Truth.

It Really Isn't Rocket Science ... Or is it?

2011-07-11T09:56:00.001-07:00

http://rattlingz.blogspot.com/2009/10/conventional-wisdom.html

Conventional wisdom would have lost me several years of dragonfly enjoyment. It seems so simple to just leave a single, dead flower stalk in the yard, and watch the insect royalty turn it into a throne.

But this picture proves that it may really be rocket science:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/566827main_image_1992_946-710.jpg

The Most Interesting Pastor in the World ...

2011-06-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

Leonard Sweet wrote some years ago in his book, Soul Tsunami, that the Gospel is like water - it takes the shape of its container, but its nature remains unchanged. He argued that we should not be concerned about the shape of the container, but about the contents. That the way we "do church" should be, in effect, a container that is attractive and relevant to our culture, so that the contents, the unchanging water of the Gospel, can be more readily accessed by that culture. I don't disagree with this.

However, many so-called churches are more like soulless, Frankensteinian, manmade, zombie monsters rather than expressions of the Body and Bride of Christ. As containers of Gospel water, they are cracked and often bottomless. Whatever is poured in spills out on the ground and rarely reaches the parched mouths of the thirsting. Sometimes a few drops remain, just enough to give an empty promise of delicious, cool delights. But never enough to satisfy.

This is one reason that more and more sheep are finding ways to escape the fences of industrial church. They are unsatisfied with a few meager, warm, stale swallows from cracked, dirty troughs. They have had enough of trying to draw a little moisture from frozen, muddy puddles. They are seeking the wild source of water - water that is still but not stagnant, cold but not frozen. Clear, cool, refreshing, nourishing, cleansing. These sheep have left the bondage and imprisonment of human domestication. They are thirsty for Living Water that flows in endless, pure abundance in the places where Wild God leads his feral sheep.

For this is not the thirst of drought that withers and kills pent-up sheep; it is the thirst that brings life to those who venture into the wild, following the scent of abundant water stirring on the air.

These are the sheep who hear the Most Interesting Pastor in the World - the Great Shepherd! - saying, "Stay thirsty, my friends!"

Shepherds

2011-05-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

I imagine that we're all well-versed in Jesus' words to Peter recorded in John 21:15-17. It takes place after Jesus' resurrection, and he instructs Peter, "feed my lambs ... feed my sheep ... feed my sheep."

Notice that Jesus never says, "Feed my flock." Instead, he is very clear and precise - his orders are to feed his sheep. Now, this may sound like a rather small thing to point out, but really it is a hinge upon which a door of truth swings open or shut. Because only the Chief Shepherd has the right and responsibility for the flock. We undershepherds are only expected to shepherd sheep. Individuals, not a group.

This takes "congregation" entirely out of the shepherding equation. Jesus did not assign the task of pastoring churches, but of shepherding individuals. You can throw any number of individuals into the formula, and it doesn't affect the outcome; pastoring is not a function of numbers. Anywhere from two (or maybe one, depending upon how literally you want to take the plural reference to lambs and sheep) to at least one sheep short of the entire flock of God will not in any way influence the result of calculating out the shepherding equation.

"Pastor" is not a title, nor a church office, nor the title of the man who sits in the church office preparing sermons. It is Jesus' marching orders to his sheep, that they care for each other the same way that he does. In this way, both the caregiver and the care-receiver grow to be more like the Shepherd of the Flock as he leads them where he will.

To him alone belongs the responsibility - and the ability - to shepherd the flock. To lead the flock to green grass and clear water. To protect the flock from harm. To give the flock a home.

To us is given the honor - and the order - to show each other how to eat the grass and drink the water. How to rely on the Good Shepherd's strength and wisdom. How to follow him to "the house of the Lord," where we will dwell forever.

Why Most Christian Art Sucks

2011-04-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

Lately there have been some prophetic voices proclaiming that God is moving to bring real artistic expression through his people into his kingdom. I believe this. I also believe that much of the church will miss it, and most of those who don't miss it will see it and cringe. Because, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, the Industrial Church wouldn't know good art if it bit them in the ass. Sometimes good art does that, you know ...

You see, in the Industrial Church, everything serves a purpose. A "greater" purpose, we sometimes say. This just means that we can put it to use. The Industrial roots of our society have taught us that everything is only as valuable as its role in production of goods, provision of services, and - most especially - gathering of wealth.

It is not hard to examine our American church society and see how much it looks like our American industrial society. We flatter ourselves that this is because the church has so shaped the development of American culture. Sadly, this is rather like looking at the tread marks on a roadkill and thinking how much that dead critter must have shaped the tires of the semi that ran over it.

In the Industrial Church, art - like architecture, people, theology (and God Himself, for that matter) - is only as good as the extent to which it "builds the ministry." (Hmmmm - is there some way I can possibly rephrase that last sentence to also include a semicolon?) And so, art is not typically particularly artistic in Christian circles.

For me, the biggest downfall of current mainstream Christian painting, Christian storytelling, and other Christian artistic expressions, is how poorly they deal with ugliness. Great art elevates ugliness to tragedy. A pietà interprets the violent death of the Lamb of God - ugliness beyond human comprehension - through a mother's broken heart. A good story doesn't always end with the "sinner's prayer" ensuring they all live happily ever after ... or, as we prefer to phrase it, ensuring they all inherit eternal life. Great art does not pretend that there is nothing ugly in the world; it does not simply address the beauty of all it surveys. Great art finds and displays the beauty of a greater theme in ugliness. It finds the holy that lives in the profane.

Much of today's Christian painting is just pretty pictures - because that's the drill-your-dimple-with-a-forefinger, false-as-a-three-dollar-bill pack of lies the Industrial church demands. Christian fiction is bland, boring, tasteless, worm-eaten, soggy biscuits of stories filled with half-characters and caricatures that look about as much like real people as a chunk of broken asphalt does. And without even a tenth of the interest. 500 years ago, architecture and music were considered sister arts, and people worked hard at raising both to lofty achievements. Today, the ugliness of the average church building is matched only by the colorless clothes of its impoverished musical sister as together they endlessly repeat cookie-cutter tunes over and over, like a cheap music box made of concrete and glass.

The ugliest attempts at art that the world has ever seen are those that refuse to recognize ugliness, pain, and dissatisfaction. Beauty bursts forth uncontrollably when those realities become themes of tragedy, triumph, and yearning. Sucky art doesn't know this.

But there's a time coming, and is even now dawning, I believe, when the Body of Christ will begin to express the artistic character of the Head, and not just attempt to emulate the intellectual. To release the beauty and awesome power of God's feelings, and not just his thoughts. To be sure, the expressions of this reborn art will sometimes be muddled. Some emotional untruths will flow from our orchestra pits, art displays, and book readings. This is to be expected - it won't really be much different from all the intellectual untruth that has poured freely and unchecked from our pulpits for many years.

It'll just be scarier for some, because seminaries won't control these truths. CEO pastors won't dispense them. Spiritually-numbed sheep won't hear them and sit still - they'll break for the house of the Lord. And in so doing, they'll flock away from the corrals built by false shepherds, as they hear the voice of the real Shepherd. It could get ugly. And in ugliness, true art will find irresistible beauty.

Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe

2011-03-22T10:52:00.001-07:00

There is one road that none of the residents of Psychovillage ever take when leaving town. Well, actually there are several roads they don't take when leaving town, but that's because most of those roads don't leave town. I may be crazy, but the people inside my head aren't stupid.

But there is one road that leaves Psychovillage that no one ever takes when they head out of town. Some folks believe that the village is located right on that fine line between sanity and madness, and to leave town in that particular direction leads to the wilderness of insanity. Kind of a quaint notion, when you think about it. Residents of a town that exists entirely in my head, thinking that they reside in a sane place.

Of course, to many of them, the Head (me) is only a legend, like Santa Claus, the boogieman, or a politician who gives a damn about the working man. These guys generally think the unused road leads to the edge of the earth, and they fear falling off into oblivion.

In reality, that road leads to the very edge of our ever-spreading universe. And right there, surfing on the roaring wave of universal expansion, sits a great little restaurant. You should drop in sometime. Doesn't matter what you order - they only serve one dish. But, being at the leading edge of creation, reality is in constant flux, and the food, along with the decor, and the servers, changes every few minutes. So, if you don't like what they bring you, just wait a bit - it'll change. Of course, if you do like it, you might want to eat quickly - you never know when it'll pass that way again.

Sit out on the patio, enjoy a nice lunch, and watch the universe expand - what could be better?

Old folks and cigars

2011-02-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me the other day that old folks and cigars have a lot in common:

1. Used to be you'd see people enjoying a lot of both on the front porches of homes up and down the street. Now, not so much. Seems like "society" has decided that old folks and cigars alike should be kept away from the general populace. We've set up "designated smoking areas" and "designated old-folks areas" where people may still furtively enjoy one or the other, if they so choose.

2. Some people think they smell funny. And some of them do.

3. Cigars and old folks slow you down. It takes time to sit and enjoy a cigar, just like it takes time to sit and enjoy someone who just doesn't give a damn about hurrying around at a socially-acceptable, properly-productive rate of speed.

4. Cigars and old folks have intrinsic value that is unrelated to what they do, or how much they contribute, or how much they cost. Yesterday I smoked a cigar that I received as a gift. I have seen that cigar selling for $20.00, though I suppose a savvy shopper could find them for less. I enjoyed every minute of the 2 hours it took to burn through it. I didn't enjoy it because it could have cost $20.00 - I enjoyed it because it was a really, really good cigar (My Father 2010 Limited Edition, if you're wondering). Some people might buy that cigar because it is produced in small quantities, costs a lot, and comes individually-packaged in its own lovely little Spanish cedar box (commonly referred to as a coffin) - a collectible. If I ever can see my way clear to buy a $20.00 cigar, it will be because I intend to enjoy every puff of smoke it can produce, not because I want to be able to say, "I have a My Father LE Coffin in the humidor." Old folks - and people in general, of course - aren't commodities or collectibles, though we can sometimes look at them that way.

5. Some of them really do smell funny. Oddly, though, many of those funny-smelling cigars taste great, and make great companions for an afternoon smoke. I wonder if some of those funny-smelling old folks might make the best companions for an afternoon visit.

6. There's a lot of back-story to each of them. From birth to death, cigars and people go a fair number of places, and experience a lot of stuff. You can't just ask a cigar where it was born, where it has been, who has influenced its development. You have to smoke it, patiently and carefully analyzing and enjoying each puff of smoke. If you do this well, you can taste the richness of the soil that gave birth to the leaves. You'll find hints of the long history of tobacco's cultivation. You'll notice the care of the grower, the harvester, the blender, the roller. You'll experience the value of proper aging. You'll understand a little of how mankind turns the God-given elements of earth, wind, fire, and water into an afternoon's enjoyment. You can't pry this information out of the cigar - it has to share with you on its own terms. Spend some time with people, and you'll find out that who they are is rooted in who their families have been. Where they now sit is greatly a function of where they have walked. You can find out what one person has done with the God-given elements of genetics and environment. And maybe find more than an afternoon's enjoyment in the process.

Remembrances

2011-02-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

He makes grass grow for the cattle,
   and plants for people to cultivate—
   bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens human hearts,
   oil to make their faces shine,
   and bread that sustains their hearts.     Psalm 104:14-15 (NIV)

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
I Corinthians 11:23-26 (NIV)

I find it interesting that of all the elements of the Passover Feast, each with its own deep and unique symbolic meaning in Israel's redemption saga, Jesus gave special significance to the bread and the wine. Especially noteworthy, I think, because wine was not even part of the original Passover celebration, but was added sometime later.

Perhaps one of these "remembrances" should be this: God gave bread to strengthen the hearts of mankind, and wine to bring joy to their hearts. And Jesus gave his own body and blood to be the bread and wine that fills the redeemed heart with strength and joy.

Don't get me started on whether a miserable morsel of flavorless bread can in any way represent the strength of God's rich provision. Or whether a stingy sip of reconstituted grape juice can even hope to bring to remembrance the joy of God's amazing gift. Spiritually or physically!

Redemption's Dance

2011-02-06T09:55:00.002-07:00

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. (Matthew 27:50-52)

The curtain was torn (perhaps from the inside?), and Glory danced out. His feet struck the ground, ever-so-lightly and gracefully; but still the earth was shaken - so powerful is His step, so holy His touch. Massive rocks split and shattered beneath His irresistible dancing. The rhythm of His movements thrummed a sympathetic chord in long-dead hearts, and they began to beat to its cadence. Graves could not hold back this new life, and they, too, were torn open. The no-longer-dead sprang from the ground to join the great, eternal dance of grace.

Come, join the Dance!

Redemption's Dance, the great and mysterious perichoresis, is not like taking a few salsa lessons on a cruise ship and then saying, "I've danced." This is daily, moment-by-moment letting His nail-ripped hands take us, guide us, and hold us in the Dance. It is daily, moment-by-moment learning to follow His every lead. It's not just a lifetime of learning and sharpening our skill in - and enjoyment of - the Dance. It's eternal.

Come, join the Dance!

Redemption's Dance neither began nor ended with some "born-again" moment. It reached no climactic moment at the point of some mystical experience or healing miracle or outpouring of power. It began before the earth spun from God's hand. In fact, in a mysterious way, the Dance gave birth to human life in the very beginning, just as it patiently works, every moment, its intricate designs to give new life to hearts and spirits buried in graves of darkness. And when those hearts come to life, the Dance calls them to join, to celebrate Redemption's New Life. Forever.

And ever.

And then some ...

Come, join the Dance!

A notebook's tale

2011-01-19T14:38:00.001-07:00

At work today I opened a cabinet, looking for some paper clips. And there they were. No, not the paper clips, the notebooks. Not binders or clipboards, but spiral-bound notebooks with stiff cardboard covers. They weren't very big - maybe 4x6 inches.

I just had to take one down and flip open the cover. I admired the first page, blank save for a series of horizontal lines just begging for the chance to hold up streams of words and sentences and ideas and paragraphs and notes and ...

That first, inviting sheet was not alone, either. It stood ready at the head of an entire half-inch-thick army of like pages, each waiting its turn to fight against the forces of wordlessness that hold countless thoughts captive. Unwritten, unspoken, unformed (and even as-yet-unthought) thoughts, imprisoned in unexpression.

The pristine emptiness of new notebooks promises that songs and stories and sketches are not yet dead in this world. That a universe of as-yet-undiscovered words might still find a place to lay down, to play, to work, to live, to love ...

I closed the little notebook and returned it to its place in the supply cabinet. A little sadly, in fact. Its empty pages, so full of promise, will probably never give life to anything more exciting than scribbled phone messages.

Christmas in the Village

2010-12-30T10:31:00.001-07:00

Well, Christmas is over, and a new year is headed in our general direction.

This year the folks in the Village had a bit of a hard time planning their Christmas celebration. Many voices called for a singalong around a giant Christmas tree, with toys, and food, and ...

"And a big, green, hairy curmudgeon staring down from a clifftop mumbling in rhyme about how much he hates Christmas?" one voice demanded. Many others quickly agreed. "Too Dr. Seuss-y," they cried. In the end, though, the singalong was canceled, not entirely because of these objections, but also because no one could agree on the lyrics to this song:

The top contenders were "Baboon chorus," "Cancun florist," and "Rangoon forest." Have you ever noticed that no matter how you spell baboon, it never - and I mean never! - looks right?

One group called for pageantry and Santa Claus and eggnog. In response, one group played Weezer ...

For a bunch of people who live in a head, you'd think they could be more imaginative. How about relaxing on comfy lawn furniture scattered around the rim of a black hole, and sipping mimosas while watching the universe pour through the event horizon? Do I have to come up with everything????

A safari? They'd probably immediately start thinking about Africa. Elephants. Guns or cameras. Nothing wrong with that, just a whole lot that isn't quite right. Not for residents of a psycho-village. I'm thinking about a safari to the bottom of an alien ocean. Or even a terrestrial one. Trophies? Pictures? Bah! Humbug! Every bizarre creature you see, you become, for as long as you like, swim-flying freely about in the depths. Or rocketing upward to burst through the waves into the air for a magical moment before falling back again.

Visions of sugar plums ... really? How about stockings from whose open tops burst waterfall sprays of flowers in unnameable colors, that taste like lime, coconut, chili and chocolate, in ever-evolving combinations?

A jolly old elf in a sleigh pulled by tiny, magical, flying reindeer? Pffft! What about ... ... ... ... actually, you know, that's pretty good just like it is. Santa's in. But maybe the reindeer need to spark trails of technicolor flame from their little hooves as they gallop through the sky.

Well, it's a good thing I stepped in, because after all their planning and arguing and head-scratching (theirs, thankfully, not the inside of mine) they were all just settling down for a long winter's snore-fest. To be followed by a 100-accordion salute to Christmas polka tunes.

Instead, I leave you, my dear readers, with this lovely parting tune from those sweet ladies of Shonen Knife:

Garrison Keillor I ain't ...

2010-12-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Once again my fan has contacted me, mourning my negligent lack of output around here. So, before the Village residents sponsor a polka tournament in my head, I thought I should drop a few thoughts.

First, I'm sure everyone has seen those license-plate holders that say, "My other car is ... "

I think the first ones said " ... a Cadillac." Of course, no one who actually owned a Cadillac ever displayed such a saying. However, I used to work for some guys who made a bit of money in the oil business, and one of them owned a Rolls. His company car was a Cadillac. So, for his birthday, his partners mounted the classic "My other car is a Cadillac" license-plate holder on his Rolls.

Over the years, of course, variations have appeared - "My other car is worse than this one," and "My other car is an F-16," for instance.

This morning I saw one that said, "My other pancreas is battery-powered." Yeah. I don't know what the hell to do with that. No idea at all. "My other pancreas is battery-powered."

No segue possible. Take a look at this YouTube video of the sun:

Am I the only one who has the creepy feeling that I'm trapped in a sort of alternate reality where Tim Burton hosts A Prairie Home Companion?

And finally, to close our show today, here's a little Christmas wish from the jolly little elves of Apocalyptica:

Please tune in next time ... whenever that is ... when our guests will be ... whoever they are ...

We now return control of your web browser.

Wry Grass --OR-- a Little Rye Humor

2010-10-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

You may have seen the commercials for Scotts EZ Seed Winter Lawn Mix. It's advertised as a regional winter grass, fertilizer and seed-protecting mulch all in one.

I rarely plant a winter lawn; it's really nice to have a break from mowing and so on. Of course, this past summer, Pam handled a lot of the mowing, so I guess I don't have much to complain about. So, since we are having a lot of company around the resort this winter, Pam was easily able to convince me that we should plant a winter lawn.

I went online and printed out the $10.00 off coupon, and then headed to Homey D's place to see if Scotts valued their EZ Seed as highly as I feared they would. Yeah - pretty much. $90.00 for a bag that would cover about 2/3 of our small lawn. So, $180.00 minus the $10.00 coupon, leaves $170.00 for 600 square feet of green to mow and weed-eat. There was a guy there, either from Scotts or Home Depot marketing, who was trying to convince folks that EZ Seed is the best thing since Tom Sawyer's picket fence. Tom was much better at his craft. I bought all the seed I needed, and all the mulch I needed to cover it, for $35.00. I already had enough Milorganite, my choice of lawn fertilizers, to do the job.

Milorganite is not only a great fertilizer, using it helps the good folks of Milwaukee dispose of their sewage in a constructive manner. And give the city credit - years ago, when I was in the nursery business, Milorganite bags bore a stern warning against using them on food crops, due to the presence of the heavy metal, cadmium. Not to be confused with the company that makes those disgusting candy eggs at Easter time, although they appeal to me just about as much as eating sewer sludge, with or without heavy metals. But I don't eat either one, and Milorganite no longer carries that warning, presumably due to successful clean-up efforts.

Now, I admit that, with the grass seed, the mulch, and the fabled Milorganite, I had to open 6 bags instead of two. I had to mix the seed and fertilizer by hand, and spread the mulch afterward. On the other hand, I'm not overly worried about the ingredients in any of those bags, which I can't say as easily about the Scotts product. Organic vs. chemically-manufactured fertilizer aside, what in the world do you suppose goes into the crap that swells up when it gets wet, so that it covers the seed?

In the final analysis, I'm happy to spend 1/3 as much for twice as many bags and a little extra work. OK, if I had to buy the Milorganite, it would have pushed the price up another almost-30-dollars. Still well short of the alternative.

So, here I sit, enjoying the fresh smell of composted mulch, typing this little rambling rattle, waiting for the grass to grow. I must admit, the saying "as exciting as watching grass grow" has suddenly taken on a remarkable reality of meaning for me.

Have They No Shepherd?

2010-10-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

Pam and I were driving home from San Diego a while back, and as we passed through El Centro, I pointed some sheep in a field on the south side of the Interstate.

"Oh, have they no shepherd?" she asked.

Without even thinking, I replied, "They don't need a shepherd, they have fences."

It was one of those times when God spoke through both of us, and we didn't even know it until we heard ourselves talking. I can picture God sitting on his throne, saying to the angles and elders and living creatures, "Wait for it ... waaaaiiit foorrrr iiiitt ..."

And in a few seconds it hit both of us. It's really easier for the sheep and for the shepherd if the flock is confined behind fences. That's why industrial church relies so heavily on directing by teaching/preaching and so little on leading by example. It's why the flock is so content to live far from the fullness of God's goodness and freedom, for fear of doing something sinful.

And it's a lot more, too. Yet another chapter for the book ...

Dealing with a signage infection

2010-10-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

OK, I've been pretty harsh about some church signs, and maybe someone is wondering if I have anything constructive to say, and not just criticisms. In other words, I've talked a lot about what church signs shouldn't say, but can I give suggestions for what they should say?

Maybe.

First, I have to say that church signs are a lot like church meetings - it takes a pretty good one to be better than none at all. Fortunately, many churches do have pretty good meetings. So, make the sign look like your meetings. Because that's what people will think anyway - what you say on your sign is what you say in your meetings. Like making fun of people you supposedly are trying to love in a godly way. Making jokes about them going to hell, which you claim is so terrible you don't want anyone to end up there. Maybe even make your sign look like you wish your meetings looked.

How about putting the name of a serviceman/woman on the sign thus, "We're praying today for PFC John Doe, in Afghanistan. Come home safely, John."

Naturally, you'll have to actually have someone at the building praying for that person. If you're really committed to doing good things, change the name every day and make sure that someone in the church building carries through with the promise. Every day.

Maybe even something like this, "Come on in and join us - we're praying for PFC John Doe, in Afghanistan."

Lost child in the news? "Come on in and join us - we're praying for Amber Doe."

You could set a time frame, though it would be really cool not to have to. "Come on in and join us - we're praying for Amber Doe. 9:00-11:00 A.M."

Naturally, this approach requires that someone change the sign frequently. Every day would not be too often. Someone would have to do some research to know who to pray for, and how. Someone would have to be available at the church building to actually be in prayer, and to make others welcome should they choose to join in. Someone would have to do some real work battling the enemy, instead of firing random mortar rounds into the enemy's already-conquered territory. Because we aren't fighting the people who read those signs - we're fighting the spiritual lord who has taken them as a conquest. And if he laughs at our jokes, it's only because they help his cause.

Well, that's one constructive suggestion. Mark that off my list of things to do ...

The Inside Gospel

2010-09-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

Well, the church changed their sign again. Eastbound traffic sees:

Try Jesus. If you don't like him, the devil will always take you back.

Westbound traffic sees the schedule of services. Perhaps someone expects that upon reading eastbound, passers-by will be grasped by the implacable claws of conviction. And so, by the time they pass the sign again, in the other direction, they will want to know when they can gather into the loving arms of this fellowship. Or maybe there is nothing intentional about this arrangement.

Either way, I saw no extra cars in the nearly-empty parking lot. No throngs of lost souls on their knees before the great sign, pouring out their heart-wrenched pleas for just one more chance to try Jesus. No vows of lifelong loyalty no matter how badly the devil may want them back.

No, it was just another day of the week. Lines of cars sped past, apparently leaving behind an untried Jesus. Barreling into the welcoming clutches of a waiting and willing devil.

And why should anyone "try Jesus?" That sign is not about bringing people into the church. It has nothing to do with offering Living Water to thirsty souls. It's not even a real attempt to convince someone to "try Jesus." It's nothing more than an inside joke that makes church "insiders" laugh at the expense of church "outsiders." It's just another barely-humorous and marginally-creative attempt to look hip, current, witty, and "evangelical." But the only people who get the joke are the ones who already have given Jesus a try. Only those whose hearts are adamant against the devil's clutching desires can see the remarkable wit in the sign's admonition.

And so it is with a lot of the crap that we try to pass off as "the Gospel." Bad inside jokes, and phrases that are only catchy if you've already caught the disease they're passing. "Pray this prayer" and you'll be "saved." Tell me when you prayed the prayer, so I can know how long you've "been saved." Pray the prayer here, in this place, so that when you're "saved," we can claim you as one of "ours." Now, go tell everyone else to pray the prayer so they can be "saved," too. And be sure to bring them here, so we can make them "ours," too.

And when they're "saved," they'll look, think, and act just like all of us, because we're what "saved," people look like! In fact, that's how we know when someone really means the prayer - being "saved" makes them just like us!

You know, the ones who think, "Try Jesus. If you don't like him, the devil will always take you back," is funny, creative, and evangelical.

God forgive his Bride for reducing her wedding invitation, written in God's own blood on shredded flesh, to the words, "Try Jesus" in moveable letters stuck on a lighted sign. For exchanging God's richest feast for a pitiful bit of tasteless bread and a tiny sip of reconstituted grape juice. For worshiping our theologies instead of falling helplessly on our faces in the life-threatening presence of Theos and Logos.

Half Truth - Maybe?

2010-08-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

As you know, if you've read my unfaithfully-maintained rattlingz for any length of time, I pass by several churches on my drive to work. Churches with prolost (my coinage for opposite of profound) sayings on their signs. This morning another such pithless phrase appeared:

Church - it isn't just somewhere you go, it's something you do.

Half right, I guess, depending on your point of view. First, let's assume that the signmaker intended to use Merriam/Webster's (online) 3rd definition of church - the one that talks about a body of believers. In that case, "church" is not somewhere you go. But neither is it something you do. It's someone you are. Church as something to do is church that, instead of meeting, gathering, or getting together, has meetings, gatherings, and get-togethers. That subtle shift in semantics makes a world of difference in practice. Meeting, gathering, getting together, and so on, are things that happen among the flock as we move along the path the Good Shepherd chooses. "Having" a meeting or a gathering or a get-together is something that happens because a human shepherd says it must.

If we take Merriam/Webster's 1st definition of church, it is just somewhere we go - it's a building. 2nd definition is an organizational hierarchy. Dictionaries don't arbitrarily choose the order of definitions - they are listed that way because of frequency of use. A building's hard, confining walls, and the governmental hierarchies that echo those confinements, all spawn a church of going and doing. Taking church outside the building does not guarantee freedom from "the box." Because the top-down, one-man-has-it-all, executive-senior-pastor model simply makes the walls invisible. It does not tear them down.

What is needed is true plurality of leadership - leadership that meets to encourage each other. Leadership that is simply a matter of following the lead of the Good Shepherd, whether you find it in his words, his face, or the sight of the butt of the sheep in front of you who is also following the Shepherd. This is the gist of Hebrews 10's admonition to not abandon gathering together - gather together to be encouragers of each other. With whatever gifts we may have. It is not a matter of one or even a few leaders encouraging the poor sheep who can't do anything for themselves. In fact, the encouragement to continue gathering is right in the whole Hebrews salad (10:19-25 - lots of "let us" - nyuk, nyuk). Not, "let a preacher tell you how to ...," but "let us" draw close to God, and so on.

Our gatherings reflect who we are. Do they show us as people who "go to church," people who "do church," or a people who "are church?" If we "go" or "do," we remain discreet individuals, able to choose where, when, and how we exist as part of the Flock, the Body, the Bride, of Christ. We choose what degree of joinder or separation is comfortable for us. If we "are," then those issues of joining and separating are moot. Sheep are not sheep because they join the flock. Sheep are sheep because they are born that way. The flock is a natural extension of their "sheep-ness."

I'm struck to the heart by this view of Amos 5:21-24 from The Message:

I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.

Ouch.

Have we misplaced our metaphors?

2010-07-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

When I began smoking cigars, I became part of an online forum for cigar enthusiasts. I joined largely so I could ask questions and learn more about my new hobby. It didn't take long to discover that the forum wasn't really about cigars. Cigars are more of a metaphor around which a virtual community has sprouted. It's a community where everyone's contribution is valued, but no one's value is in any way measured according to their contribution.

Think about that for a moment. Pretend you're a welcome part of a community that values your gifts to that community - whatever they may be. Just imagine that your value to the community is not based on the perceived value of your gifts, but on your having a relationship to the metaphor that draws the community together. Think how it would be if some measure of "quality" or "quantity" of that relationship were not a benchmark for your worth in the community.

In the cigar forum I mentioned, I am among the newest and least frequent smokers, and I possess one of the smallest stashes of smokes. I do have an amazing humidor, but I wouldn't have that without the forum. In spite of the fact that I am at the low end of devotion to the metaphor, in terms of measurable, physical "stuff," even the elders of the tribe enjoy my conversation. I haven't randomly dropped a bunch of cigars in anyone's mailbox, but I'm made as welcome in any discussion as members who seem to send out daily "bombs."

There are leaders - moderators - who have control over many of the "facilities." They can create new forums, move posts, close topics, suspend memberships, etc. But their cigar reviews are taken no more seriously (or lightly) than my own.

Hopefully you don't have to pretend that you belong to such a community. If you're really fortunate, the church you call home functions like that. But, sadly, that kind of "community of believers" is all-too-rare. Churches tend to value people according to what they bring to the table, rather than appreciating the gift, while valuing the giver only as a follower of Jesus. Followers of Jesus are valued - or evaluated - according to how well their footsteps fall into the community's definition of a pathway that leads to him.

In the online world, a cigar is a good metaphor to meet around. It's not the only one, but, based upon my experience, it's a really good one. What do our churches gather around? Meetings, for one thing. "Gathering together" is an excuse to have a meeting, instead of a response to missing each other's presence. Meetings exist to accomplish purposes of worship, mission, teaching, donation, organizational maintenance, etc. These are the metaphors arround which we often try to build communities of faith. Jesus is only rarely the metaphor for our gatherings.

Wait just a minute!!!!! Jesus isn't a metaphor - Jesus is God! How can I even suggest that it's a good idea to meet around a metaphorical Christ? Let's go back to the cigar metaphor. Most of us on the forums will never smoke an actual, physical cigar together. So, the cigar is a bonding metaphor that joins us into a community that believes in serving others. A tribe that teaches the joy of giving a gift and the humility of receiving one. But, that doesn't change for those members who gather together and burn actual cigars in a single place. So, even the reality of a cigar serves as a metaphor.

This is a weak reflection of the God/Jesus/Spirit role as the spark that fires our gatherings, but it does help illustrate a problem in churches today. Many churches gather around only a metaphor of the Divine, using him as a point of contact where people can be encouraged (or driven) to serve, give, worship, etc. Other churches refuse to see any value in this metaphor, and meet only to encounter the Divine. For them a, cigar is just a cigar. Either extreme is terribly unbalanced.

True church community can grow to full strength only when the metaphoric and literal Godhead share a place of honor. Which comes first? The reality or the metaphor? There were cigars before there was a forum for cigar enthusiasts. But before the forum there were cigar enthusiasts looking for a place to learn to be - and to help others become - better people. I don't think it matters which comes first. For some it will be the metaphor of God; for others the reality; and for some - both at once. Just another pointless argument if we try to pursue it very far.

I hope you live in such a spiritual community. I hope you live in other communities that function this way as well. I hope that whatever community you find yourself in, you can find, demonstrate, and enjoy both the real and the metaphorical wellspring of your tribe.

2010-07-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

There are leaders in the church - pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, etc. - whose goal is to care for the sheep. To guard them from wild beasts, to steer them safely to pasture and back home again. To live in tune with the Great Shepherd so that they can see and immediately follow his verbal and manual commands. To watch over the flock without need, hope, or desire for anything more than basic rewards of food, shelter, and some companionship with the Shepherd. They take no ownership interest in the sheep, nor do they kill and eat them. They are like sheepdogs, helping the Great Shepherd take care of the flock. They help guide and protect the sheep. Their work is their reward - it is the nature of sheepdogs to love herding-duties.

And then there are pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, and so on, who make the flock their own, and usurp the authority of the Great Shepherd. These leaders, who should be sheepdogs, want to be shepherds and sheep-ranchers and livestock-owners in their own right. And they surround themselves with lapdogs who pant after their every word. Little dogs who live only to chase a bouncing ball, to eat mutton-flavored treats from their human master's hand, and to cuddle up with master and make him feel wanted, powerful, and important. They are blindly obedient to the human who trained them.

Look out, folks - I have a feeling God is separating the sheepdogs from the lapdogs.

How I gave up smoking and why I took it up again

2010-06-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

I gave up smoking the summer between first and second grades. One of the neighbor kids pilfered a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches from her parents' stash and several of us gave them a try. It took a few attempts to overcome the challenge of lighting a paper match. None of us had ever actually done it, but we had all seen our parents and other adults applying the head of the match to the scratchy part of the cover. So, eventually we got the hang of it, and went to work applying our newly-created flames to the ends of a few cigarettes. Naturally it took a few matches to actually get the little white cylinders burning.

I drew a tentative breath through my specimen. It tasted awful. Thinking maybe quality and quantity were directly proportionate, I inhaled for all I was worth. If I had known the names of my internal organs, I would have tried to identify each of them as I coughed them past my lips. I decided on the spot that the only thing worse than secondhand cigarette smoke was firsthand cigarette smoke.

Fast forward forty-plus years. I still hate the sharp, ugly smell of fresh cigarette smoke, almost as much as I detest the musty staleness of leftover cigarette smoke. I have no desire to ever try another one. But something about cigar-smoking has caught my attention. It seems like such a civilized way to spend some relaxing time. After much research, I decide to take the plunge ...

It's late spring and I'm sitting on my patio under the lacy overhang of a shady green tree. A glass of wonderfully-red-colored Cabernet Sauvignon sparkles on the table. My beautiful wife of thirty-one years sits across from me. The splashing of the waterfall in the koi pond sets the peaceful mood perfectly. A breeze stirs the air, rustles the leaves, sets flowers dancing all around the yard. It also blows out the match with which I'm trying to light my Macanudo Hampton Court. I break out the butane lighter. Not one made for cigars, but a butane lighter nonetheless.

I have already cut the head of the cigar. Holding it head-up on a cutting board, I just barely allowed the edge of a sharp knife to touch the cap as I rotated the cigar. The result was a clean cut, and I am proud of myself.

Now I hold the cigar to the lighter's flame, closer than I should, but I have to get the cigar lit. I take a few quick puffs, trying successfully to avoid any taste of the first, overheated smoke. For the better part of the next hour I puff my cigar, sip my wine, visit with my wife, and enjoy my lovely, peaceful retreat of a yard. At one point a swallow of wine and a breath of smoke combine in my mouth in a synergistic way that elevates both flavors to a place neither could reach on its own. My wife enjoys the occasional light whiff of cigar smoke she gets while sitting upwind of my position.

And I realize that I have found something of immense value. This cigar, although it delivered far too little flavor to suit me, brought the pace of my overly-busy life to a much-needed crawl. Perhaps I'm rationalizing, but it seems that the health risks of one or two cigars a week may largely be overcome by the benefits of relaxing and unwinding for the length of time it takes to smoke them. At any rate, for me, the mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits are worth the officially-undetermined risks of occasional cigar-puffing.

Later cigars I cut with a tool made for that purpose. They delivered a stronger flavor, more to my liking. I bought them at a better price, after doing more shopping and research. But, no matter their flavor or price-level, and regardless of the equipment used to enjoy them, the greatest joy they bring is in the need to slow down and enjoy them. Future cigars will catch fire in the flame of my new cigar lighter. They may emerge proudly from my own humidor, perhaps even one I have made with my own hands. And they, like their predecessors, will slow down every minute spent smoking them.

That is why I took up smoking again, after these many years - a cigar, for me, is a "life-timer" that forces me to slow way, way down, and teaches me to enjoy a snail's pace.

Can you hear Me now?

2010-06-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

MONROE, Ohio - A six-story statue of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving only a blackened steel skeleton and pieces of foam that were scooped up by curious onlookers Tuesday.

Maybe God's getting tired of our private versions of Jesus ...

What is Church?

2010-06-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

A question that my new long-distance friend, Mike Bishop, asks on the cover of his book.

"Surely there is more to church than putting on a good Sunday service," he muses. And he discovers that "Finding your purpose does not mean you identify your place in someone else's dream." But, because American church is largely (and increasingly) built on a business model, with the whole corporation taking on the personality of the CEO, there are more and more people "... who love jesus but are dying in the church." (All quotes from pages 14 and 15)

If you have ever felt like a cog in someone else's wheel; like you've been trained to do stupid sheep tricks; like there must be more to church than you're experiencing - this book is a great place to start the search for deeper meaning. It's the story of a man who is walking that road, discovering along the way the richness of asking fresh questions about church leadership, structure, meetings, and traditions.

You can get the book on Amazon, and I could put up a link and get a split of the income off any copies you buy there. But I'd really rather you go to Mike's web site and poke around a little bit, and then buy the book from him. http://www.whatischurch.com

The picture of unconventional wisdom

2010-05-28T20:44:00.001-07:00

10/26/09 - I blogged about conventional wisdom. How conventional wisdom would advise me to cut down the last remaining dead flower stalk sticking up from an aloe in my yard. But, I decided to leave it because dragonflies found it quite attractive.

4/17/10 - I blogged about deliberately leaving a dead flower stalk in the same place, hoping that a dragonfly would rest there, and sure enough, one did.

Today - just in case you don't believe me, here are a couple of pictures taken May 21st. Full-size versions await your click on these thumbnails...

The Flute Player

2010-05-25T17:00:00.004-07:00

Wow - it's been a long time since I blogged! Well, here's something, anyway...

The song scattered on the breeze, each note sailing aloft on invisible wings, alighting and reassembling so that each listener heard something a little bit different, something unique to their ear. Without a word, the simple wooden flute and battered old guitar wove a captivating story ...

Pretty girls in white dresses danced in the moonlight, their ruffly skirts swirling and swishing to the music. A few guitars sang, the pretty girls danced, the moon and stars shone all through the night. It seemed as though the air could not possibly hold anything more, as though the sights and sounds must have filled it to overflowing. But, no, the night wind swept up and down every street, in and out of every open door and window, dropping its gentle burden of sweetness. Out on the desert, las reínas de la noche chose this June night to unfold their matchless blossoms. The pretty girls twirled to the music, and their white dresses looked like flowers; the cacti opened their petals to the moonlight, and their flowers looked like white dresses.

The flute player knew that some people cannot smell the queen of the night's perfume. This made him sad; it must be like a deaf man watching an orchestra play an unmatched performance. Some of his sorrow slipped into the notes of his song, and his friend's guitar echoed their grief. But sorrow is only the dormant season when life's trees gather their energy to break out in new leaves, branches, and delicious fruits. And so it was with the song ...

Joy trembled through its branches and new life leapt forth. The pretty girls, now clothed in red and yellow and orange, danced their beautiful patterns around red and yellow and orange leaping and swaying fires. The music itself caught flame, and now the story was of a thousand guitars singing burning harmonies into a blazing July night. In the distance the mountain-jagged horizon flickered with lightning, and dull rumbles of thunder joined the concert. A summer monsoon swept across the thirsty desert, a song of rain and a new season. Now the lightning danced all around in angular leaps and skips contrasting to the pretty girls' swaying and swirling. Thunder clapped a new drumbeat while the wind swished and swept sheets of watery life over the waiting crowd. And there came on the wind a new expression of an ancient fragrance - the freshness of thousands of square miles of soaked creosote bushes.

The flute and the guitar felt the change, joined it, expounded its new theme ...

God was lightning, dancing in his world, among his children. His hand-claps and footsteps rolled a thundering new rhythm that ruled the dance. The wind and the unforgettable fragrance it bore, were nothing more, and not a bit less, than the swishing of his heavenly robes spreading the perfume of his royal and sacred garments.

And again the player was saddened. He knew that though there were many who knew a lot of facts about wind and rain and thunder and lightning, not many understood that God danced upon storms. And though there were many who knew a lot of words about God, not many believed that from time to time he danced into his creation. Not many who heard musical stories too grand for mere words. Not many who could smell las reínas de la noche on their single night of bloom, nor many who recognized the fragrance of God's robes when the wind blew full of the incense of wet greasewood ...

But the song refused to turn solemn. This was not a time for mourning, but for dancing. The greatest Dancer of all was himself leading the festivities. The pretty girls spun and soared as never before. Countless guitars sang out in melodies and harmonies and rhythms never before found by fingers on strings. The scents of flowers and rain and life filled lungs with a richness and health that felt more satisfying than oxygen.

Tears streaked freely down the player's face, and in some dimension they shone different colors - gray for sadness, purple and blue and green for joy, red and yellow and orange for passionate longing to join the dance, to hear the numberless guitars in chorus, to weave among the pretty girls, to drink the potent añero mescal, to inhale the incense of las reínas del la noche and greasewood. Was this, then, his vision of heaven?

"No," he smiled, a gentleness that flowed into the now-ebbing strains of wordless song. This song was not of heaven, it was of earth. It was as earthy as a song could be, for it was the song of an earth the way its Creator intended it to be. A song of the cosmos celebrating every footstep of her dancing King when he pays a visit. The player set his flute down. He would never touch it again, for he built it specifically to play the one song he heard in his heart. Now, that song, and the sounds of his flute, suggested new melodies and rhythms and harmonies and daring turns and leaps and spins. He would build a new flute to play this new song, and when that was done, he would lay it aside for another, and another, and another, until one day his work of building flutes and shaping music would be done. In that day, and forever after, he would always say that in his life he built only one flute, and played only one song. That each instrument he fashioned and every song he played were only single steps toward the creation of the next.

Pianos and violins and songs, oh, my...

2010-05-07T09:23:00.000-07:00

In The Supper of the Lamb, Francis Farrar Capon tells of a musician who gave up playing the piano because so many of the notes he wanted to play lay "between" the piano keys, and therefore weren't accessible to him. So he gave up the piano and took up the violin, which has no such restrictions, and then he was able to play all the notes he heard in his head, and was happy.

I think we tend to hear God's songs over us as though he were tuned to a piano, when in reality he is more like a violin, only ever-so-much-more-so.

Western European music theory breaks an octave into 12 tones, with equal spaces (intervals) between each tone. A "key" is defined by 7 of those notes creating a scale with a particular pattern of intervals. Musical traditions - folk and academic - around the world break the octave into more or fewer divisions, but not by any great margin. Over the years some musicians have developed experimental scales that include some of those "in-between" notes, like this example:

F, F-plus, F-plus-plus, F-sharp-minus-minus, F-sharp-minus, F-sharp.

This adds four named tones between the smallest traditional division in Western theory. But even these tiny divisions leave out a potentially infinite number of variations, most of which would be too small for human hearing to differentiate.

When God sings to us, we apply whatever system of theory we are familiar with to try and make out the harmonies. And most of the time, I think God sings to us in our own musical languages, so that we can, in fact, catch the musicality. But sometimes he just sings out a passage in full heavenly harmony, using combinations of divisions and variations that we have never heard, including many we can't hear at all - and to us it just sounds like noise. We can't figure out the chord structure. We can't discern the scale. Heck, we can't even hear the differences between many of the notes. And that doesn't even consider the pitches lying completely outside the range of human hearing.

But, we insist upon making our best attempt to fit God's symphony into our 12-note theory. In order to do so, we pick out the intervals that we can recognize as chords, and give them familiar names. The other tones we analyze as "added notes" or "incidental noises" or even "poorly-tuned instruments" and "mistakes."

Oh, yes, the complexity of God's little, whistled tunes blasts the inner workings of our analytical tools to smithereens. Unfortunately, we don't always know it.

Of course, I'm not talking about literal, audible music. I'm really talking about how we see, hear, and experience God's revelation of himself in all the many ways he uses to do so. We dismiss as distractions and mistakes anything that doesn't fit into the scheme of analytical theory we apply. But those very tones may be the most critical to the beauty of God's harmony. We need to work harder at learning more about his theory of music, than we labor at fitting his compositions into our societal, educational, denominational, human-derived systems of analysis.

Newsboys vs. the daily news...

2010-05-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

I love the Newsboys. I mean, how can you not love a band that recognizes that God is not only "Fearsome like the sag in a fat man's chair; Sweeter than a patch of Rogaine hair," but also is "Tender as a burger in your microwave; Rarer than the air in an empty grave." And therefore declares, "I'm not following a God I can lead around..." (Who? written by Peter Furler & Steve Taylor, © 2000, Soylent Tunes)

So, the last couple of days I've found myself singing their song, He Reigns, and this morning I pulled out the Adoration CD and played it on my way to work. It's a perfect example of how three chords, twenty-four letters (no q or x), eight notes, and two hearts yielded to God, can create a transcendant message:

Let it rise above the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

It's all God's children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah, He reigns...
(Steve Taylor & Peter Furler © 2003 Ariose Music)

A lot of the songs on the CD remind me of my friend, Glen Roachelle, and what he writes on his blog - http://www.glenroachelle.blogspot.com/ - about our true citizenship, and how to look on the events around us.

From Adoration, telling the story of an onlooker at the manger in Bethlehem, and the baby who "takes my finger and he won't let go...Come, let us adore him; He has come down to this world we live in..." (Steve Taylor © 2003 Ariose Music)

To Lord (I Don't Know) :
You are the author of knowledge
You can redeem what's been done
You hold the present and all that's to come
Until your everlasting kingdom

Lord, I don't know where all this is going
Or how it all works out
Lead me to peace that is past understanding
A peace beyond all doubt
(Steve Taylor & Peter Furler © 2002 Ariose Music)
_______________________________________________________

And Father, Blessed Father :
Father, blessed Father
Lead and guide us for Your name’s sake
And keep us in the shelter of Your presence
‘Til we see Your face

Let us hear what You say
Let us know Your voice and all of Your ways
Take our hands, lead us home
To the refuge that we find in You alone
(Peter Furler © 2003 Ariose Music)
________________________________________________

Ending with Hallelujah :
I'm looking up, holding out,
Pressing forward without a doubt;
Longing for the things unseen,
Longing for the things I believe -
My true country.

We hope and wait for the glorious day
All tears will vanish, wiped away;
On the saints this day already shines...
(Peter Furler © 2003 Ariose Music)
________________________________________

Unconventional wisdom rewarded

2010-04-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read my earlier post about Conventional Wisdom (10/26/09), this one won't make much sense.

This morning I was trimming the spent flower stalks off the many aloes around the yard. After our unusually rainy winter, there were a lot of them! Of course, I left one - right in the middle of plain view.

Later, after lunch, I glanced out across the yard. And there, on the very tip of the sole remaining dead aloe flower stalk, sat a lovely dragonfly.

Chalk one up to Unconventional Wisdom!

Resurrection Day

2010-04-04T20:36:00.001-07:00

I hope all of you had a blessed celebration of Resurrection Sunday!

We celebrated with another couple, at our home. We gathered outside in the beautiful Spring weather, and sat around the grill. First we placed the leg of lamb over the fire, giving thanks for the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. As the meat cooked, we relished the lovely, smoky fragrance. We passed around a copy of The Life of Christ in Stereo, taking turns reading aloud about Jesus' trial, execution, and resurrection. NOTE - if you do not have a copy of this book, find one and read it. It is a remarkable synthesis of the Gospels.

As we read, we stopped occasionally to comment on things that God brought to our attention through what we heard. We prayed when he led. Over the course of the next hour-and-a-half, while the meat roasted, we added vegetables to the grill, each variety in its turn, so that all would finish cooking at the same time. We also grilled flat circles of bread for our feast.

After finishing the powerful telling of Jesus' brilliant resurrection, we sang together until the food finished cooking. After everything was set out on a table, we each took a round of bread and broke it, giving thanks for Jesus' broken body, symbolizing his death, and also returning thanks for the seeds of grain that died to spring up in new life. We poured a glass of wine for each of us, contemplating the blood of his death, and the life that is in the blood. And then we shared our feast, enjoying each other's company and celebrating Jesus through remembering his last supper, and looking forward to his promise that he will one day drink "...of the fruit of the vine ... that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God."

At the end of our meal, we finished our wine with a toast to Jesus. Then we talked more about our God and where he is leading us, imagining where and how we might be celebrating a year from now. We worshiped our amazing God again in more songs, singing of his majesty, and looking forward to the day when our joy will be complete in his presence. We enjoyed a delicious dessert and talked more about God's working. We watched water slosh suddenly out of the swimming pool, splashing clear across the deck, as the tremors of an earthquake (centered in Baja California) passed through the neighborhood.

More than six hours passed in less time than it takes to get through a "service" of singing two fast songs, two slow songs, taking an offering, and then listening to someone expound a great deal about very little. And I feel tired and refreshed, just the way I should feel after a marvelous day spent with good friends and an awesome God.

Around the yard

2010-04-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from around the place:

Looking out the back door on a rainy day in March...

Daring to be different...

A little music among the flowers...

A friend drops in for a snack...

Bougainvillea, coral, and rocks...

Aloes, the pond, and a stringer of fish???

When I built the pond, I never expected to have to mow the waterfall...

Lily pad with a ghostly reflection of a ship's bell...

In a word...

2010-04-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

I love words. I love to play games with them. One of my favorite amusements is to see how one word can morph into another, and then compare the meanings.

Like denomination, which, with only a couple of alterations, becomes demonic nation. What a fun study that is!

Or, consider how easily heaven becomes leaven, which, in the language of Scripture, is not a good thing at all. Of course, the optimists among us can point out that leaven converts to heaven just as readily.

And then there's legion. Easily transmuted to leg iron. From there, it's a small step to leghorn. And as anyone with a working knowledge of art and culture will remember, Foghorn is the most famous leghorn ever. But, beware - foghorn is not too far removed from frog porn, and no one wants that!

Sometimes it's fun to compare denominations with demonic nations, or to issue warnings (or encouragements!) about how easily heaven and leaven can change places. But it would be really stupid to accuse organizations using "legion" in their names of producing pornography. Amphibian or any other variety.

Yet sometimes I think we go nearly that far afield in the way we attempt to "interpret" what we read in the Bible. Because we see God's Word as a book, we believe that we can find His truth through literary exercise. We play with the words, the phrases, the contexts, until we can finally make ourselves comfortable with what it says.

Of course, we wouldn't phrase it that way. We would say we have arrived at the correct interpretation, or that we have heard the truth of a particular passage. But along the way, how many times have we decided that the front half of a verse is literal, and the remainder poetic and symbolic? How many words have we retranslated and redefined and rethought and reimagined and re..., re..., re... ... ... until we've re-everythinged the life out of them?

By what standard have we determined that some things are literal, others figurative; some are timeless, others locked to historical application; some are contextualized for this group, some for another, and others for everyone? Unfortunately, the standard we often (maybe always!) apply is the one that leads us to the place where the Bible says exactly what we want it to - nothing more, and nothing less.

As long as we view the Bible as a book, no matter how great a book we think (or claim to believe) it is, we will always promote the use of human tools to excavate heavenly truth. We assert by our actions, if not by our doctrine, that the human intellect is not fallen with the rest of the human constitution. That we only need beware the sinful flesh, and the wayward heart. But not the mind. How do we come to believe this? Well, we find it in Scripture ... or, rather, we cajole the words of a book into agreement with this belief.

But the truth is not a book - Truth is Jesus. The Bible isn't full of words, it breathes with the Word - again, Jesus. If we look between its covers to find stuff about God, we fall short of Scripture's potential to allow us to see God. The book can be the medium of Jesus' manifestation, bringing him to life in us. Or it can be a fossil-record of his passing, to which we apply scientific tools in order to deduce what he must have looked like, how he may have acted, what he might have eaten and drunk.

God may be old, but he ain't no fossil!

Bird-brained farmer

2010-03-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

I don't care who you are - a sunflower just has to make you feel like the plant kingdom is smiling at you!

This one was planted by some careless bird at the feeder.

Apostolic Tinkertoys

2010-03-11T15:37:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought it was safe to check my e-mail, I got another notice from Strang Media. Another marvel of an opportunity.

It's called "Businistry Works." Here's a sampler from their web site:

Let Us Help You Build Your Ministry.

Businistry Works is offering a great package to promote your ministry. It is an all around marketing package that will boost your ministry to new heights. Benefit now from this amazing special that currently runs for $2499.00 only.

I'm not sure I want a marketing firm that finds that last sentence not only acceptable, but desirable to advertise their services. I definitely want a brave knight to ride in on his great horse and slay the literary chimera, Businistry. I'm reminded of the Barney Miller episode in which a literature professor tore down an advertising sign that declared some breakfast cereal to be "the crun-crun-crunchiest!"

As to their promise of helping build a ministry, I don't necessarily object to the idea of a charitable outfit raising awareness for their cause through advertising and promotion. But, it's way too easy to forget that business is not ministry is not business. Ministry is a one-way transfer of what you need from what I have. Business is a two-way transfer of as little of what I am forced to part with for as much as I can get of what I want from you.

A friend of a friend once warned, "When you try to build a ministry, you end up ministering to a building." Doesn't mean that every ministry that should avoid the type of service offered by Businistry Works. It just means that ministries need to be very careful about how much they adopt of business models and practices. It's a slippery slope once we agree that we are building a ministry, and that we can buy someone's help to do it.

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

2010-03-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

Or not!

If you're a cartoon fan, especially of the Mel-Blanc-voiced genre, check this out:

The Looney Tunes SoundSource

Down in the lower right-hand corner are pictures of the gang. Click on one and watch the time go by...

I added the link to my list on the left.

Wildflowers and weeds

2010-03-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

What I'm finding interesting is that there are some truths that I could not have heard when I was still locked up in industrial church. Not even when I left the urban ghetto of denominationalism (or demonic nationalism, if you prefer). And not even when I exited the suburbs and took up residence in the County. I had to leave it all and hike into the wild.

It was there that I learned a great truth - sometimes the only difference between a weed and a wildflower is where you find it growing. In an urban vacant lot, or a suburban yard, or the field of an outskirts-of-town hobby farm, that plant with the orange flowers is a "damned weed." In the wild, it's a desert globe mallow.

So, I am discovering that teachings that could not possibly be true a few years ago are now making sense to me. And teachings I used to cling to will not take root out here where Wild God prowls. No doubt the soil of my heart will sprout a few weeds that are noxious wherever they may grow, and I will probably uproot a few flowers that I should have left alone.

But I trust that Wild Father will enlighten me in my gardening errors. And right now it seems good to me to make these new errors while pursuing him, rather than repeating old errors from a safe hidey-hole.

This left me speechless ... luckily I can still come up with a sermon ...

2010-03-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

This morning I got an e-mail from Strang media Group, advertising SaddlebackResources.com, where, they promise, one can "Find sermons written over the last 30 years to help feed your soul and ease your preparation." In fact, "...the Saddleback teaching pastors will lend you the tools and encouragement to become more effective in your ministry and maybe save you a littel time." Time that could, perhaps, be spent running spell-check to determine that "littel" is not a word.

But that really isn't my beef with this. I dearly love to hear teaching that springs from 15 minutes spent in the unveiled presence of God. And, any more, I can barely endure sermons developed during hours spent in books and online references. In the past few days this comparison has been especially heavy on my heart. And then I read this ad.

I am not against study. I am not opposed to teaching that involves study. But I am beyond sick of poisonous teachings that do not have their roots in a God-encounter. But, can't we find God during study of a book? Certainly we can, if we leave room for that encounter. But we will almost certainly fall short of a God-meeting when it is our intention to pick up the books and come up with a message. This is a short-circuit approach, intended to replace the perceived uncertainty of a God-encounter with the comfortable sureness of our study process. We are even less likely to run in to God when we employ study tactics designed specifically to save a "littel" time.

If we hope to encounter God in our books, then we need to open them with that goal in mind, rather than aiming to simply prepare a message. Maybe a teaching will come out of the God-encounter, or maybe he will simply say, "Time for you to be still." Maybe God will plant a word in the good soil of someone else's heart, where it will spring up, flourish, and, given a voice by virtue of our silence, bear much fruit. Or maybe he will just expect a congregation meeting to silently wait upon him.

And now, here's the kicker - the unintentional punch line to an unconscious joke that is simultaneously hilarious and painful - there is a link in the e-mail that allows you to download a message by Rick Warren, entitled Learning to Hear God's Voice. That is either the most clueless or most ballsy juxtaposition of ideas I've seen in a very, very long time. "Visit our site, where we'll sell you sermons to preach, including a powerful message on how to hear from God." Maybe he should have called it No Time to Wait on the Lord? Let Us Tell You What He Said. Or, Why Spend Only a Minute Telling Your Congregation That God Didn't Speak to you This Week, When, With Our Help, You Can Take 45 Minutes to Prove it?

Thanks for the offer, but I think I won't be buying any.

What else is in a name?

2010-03-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

OK - I've given this name-thing a lot more thought. Thanks, Ed, for the only response to my cry, my plea, my dying gasp for help. Guess I know who my true friends are... er, friend is. The good thing about not having many friends is that when my book comes out, I can lose half of them and still say I only lost a few friends over it. On the other hand, if I only lose a few friends, I'll have to face the fact that I lost half of my friendship base over the book...wait, it seems like I was talking about something else...

Oh, yeah - the name-thing. I actually like Ed's idea about a fake middle initial - X. It's kind of mysterious, and I don't think it bothers me at all to sound like "ex-something." I was also thinking about Miguel de Obispo. Or maybe Mick. Yeah - I like Mick! Naturally I won't use my middle initial, E.

Henceforth I shall be called Mick Bishop. At least until I decide if the reality is as good as the expectation...

Mick

What's in a Name?

2010-02-25T15:12:00.002-07:00

Have you ever Googled your own name? I tried it today for the first time. As I am embarking on a career as a writer, I thought it might be a good idea to find out whether someone else is already using my name.

As I expected, my search turned up an entry for Michael Bishop, a writer of science/speculative fiction. I knew about him, but hoped he might be dead or inactive by now. He is neither, which discourages me from using that particular name in my published efforts.

So, I ran "Mike Bishop." And discovered this guy:

What is Church?

Mike Bishop, of Jupiter, Florida - organic-church enthusiast. Author of What is Church?

So, the two main areas I would like to spend my time writing in are already populated by barbarians who have taken my name as their own.

I need a pseudonym. Something like Oliver Boliver Butt. Unfortunately, I suppose Dr. Seuss' estate still owns the copyright to that one.

I'm open for suggestions.

Logolatry?

2010-02-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago, Visual Thesaurus' word-of-the-day was anthropolatry - the worship of man. Apparently you can add the suffix -latry to a Latin-based word and turn it into a word for worship of that thing. Idolatry, for instance, is the one we probably know best. Autolatry denotes worship of self. Theolatry means worship of a deity.

Hmmmm... Could it be that any word that ends with -ology can be modified to end with -olatry?

Technolatry? Laborolatry? Stultolatry? Worship of technology, work, and stupidity, respectively. I'm kind of liking this power...

But it seems that the makers of dictionaries draw the line of propriety somewhere before arriving at the portals of these wonderful words. But, hey - every word has to come from somewhere, which means that at some point, someone made it up, right? And what evidence is there that any of those people were more entitled to invent words than I am? I, for one, reject both predecessolatry and antecessolatry.

All of this makes me wonder whether I might be a logolator... no, wait, logos is Greek. Can you mix Latin and Greek? Is it OK to stuff grape leaves with paella? No, I think I won't take that risk today. I'm already cooking up enough new recipes (recipelatry?) On the other hand, if -logy is a Greek suffix, and it's regularly added to Latin nouns, what would be the harm in working it the other way around? I should be free to level accusations of toiletrylatry when I walk through a department store!

All of which just goes to reinforce the probability that I am guilty of loculatry, which could either be worship of words or worship of talking.

And then, of course, there's the ultimate extension of this whole ramble - latrolatry - worship of worship. But that's a post for another day...

The War of Art

2010-02-23T08:00:00.005-07:00

Many thanks to my new friend, Patrick, for recommending The War of Art, by Steven (or Stephen) Pressfield.

It's a lot like Shout to the Lord, in the sense that once you've heard its message, you're immediately glad that someone put it out there. Then, an instant later, you wish you could have been that person. Not because of the money, or the fame, or the opportunities associated with it. Like Shout to the Lord, Pressfield's book comes from a very good place, and you would just give your left hind leg to be in such a place.

Then, after these wistful thoughts, you realize that singing Shout to the Lord, from your heart, can take you to the place from which it sprang. And it is the same when you take The War of Art into your heart - you end up in such a better place.

For my Christian friends, be forewarned - Pressfield does not write from a Christian viewpoint. But his understanding of the Divine is nonetheless staggering - perhaps even more so - for this reason. If you believe that you are a creative soul who is not living to your potential, please read the book. If you believe that you are not a creative soul, please read the book immediately, frequently, and devotedly until you learn the truth about yourself.

God shaped you from birth, or even before, to fit a particular role in this world. If you are not fulfilling that role, you are not only shortchanging yourself. And you are not "merely" defying God. You are blatantly denying all of us the fullness of all that God wants to pour into this world.

And I am just selfish enough to tell you to get off your ass and get busy filling this world with God-stuff.

Sheep Trick

2010-02-22T10:26:00.002-07:00

There is new rain in my life - songs and other revelations are flowing where few have appeared for several years. In the midst of this rainfall, I keep hearing words about shepherds. I think there must be a chapter or two in A Wild God (in the process of writing) about sheep and shepherds in the Wilds.

Here's a little bit of the downpour I drove through this morning on the way to work:

Domestic sheep, by and large, are the incarnation of boring. They just aren't terribly interesting. And that is very difficult for some shepherds to deal with. It isn't enough that sheep eat grass, drink water, and then produce manure. That they make funny noises and enjoy foolish activities like grazing and lying down in the grass. No, we often think that sheep should line up, foreleg in foreleg, and high-kick like the Flockettes. We want "our" sheep to march in intricate patterns, ride unicycles, juggle flaming knives, and bleat Celine Dion classics.

In short, many shepherds don't want happy sheep, or healthy sheep, or even normal sheep. They want trick sheep. And, to be fair, after investing four-or-more years in college (Bible or otherwise), at least another two years in seminary, and finally overcoming the rigorous inquisition of ordination proceedings, it just seems anticlimactic to walk around in the countryside, far from civilization, with no companions but a bunch of wooly critters. And for those shepherds who have not walked the education/ordination path to pastordom, the example set before them in our church culture is still one of convincing "disobedient" sheep to perform on command.

But some shepherds catch a peculiar sound on the wind, an unexpected glimpse in the night sky, a certain taste in the water. And, in whatever metaphoric fashion suits the way God has made them, they pick up a lyre and make music that opens for them the veil of protection. They step - regularly, if only briefly - into the transcendent beauty of His Holiness. And they write down songs about what they see there.

And then - and only then - they let the flock rest securely in green pastures. They lead the sheep to still waters where they may drink deeply in safety. They give the sheep places of honor, and guide them into sight of the Lord's house, the place behind the veil. In other words, having seen the Great Shepherd, they mimic the ways he cares for all of his sheep.

And then the wise shepherds get out of the way, because, as much as God's sheep like resting in green pastures, they will do their level best to run over anyone who blocks their way when they can see God's dwelling place - their heartfelt home - ahead.

Pastoring is not about getting the sheep to do things - especially not circus tricks. It's about keeping the sheep safe and healthy so that they can go about the business of being sheep. Sheep don't need to be taught how to be sheep-ly; they come by that naturally. Their Heavenly Creator has put that in them twice-over - it's in their genes, and in the new life he recreates in them with their rebirth into his great flock. It's only when we get tired of plain-old sheep, and start wishing for stunt-sheep, that we start teaching them new behaviors.

No, really, we can go inside...

2010-02-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

A while back we were privileged to spend time with a group of wonderful friends that we have come to see as our Tribe. The elders told stories of what the Almighty was saying to them. One of the themes that struck home was how enamored the church has become with the scaffolding that surrounds the true building.

As God builds his spiritual temple, he sometimes employs support structures to facilitate the work. Visual Thesaurus defines such a structure, a scaffold, as a temporary arrangement erected around a building for convenience of workers. But when these structures are no longer required, God will move them off to the side. But, for some reason, christians seem fascinated by the scaffolding. We can't take our eyes off the platforms, even when the building is being revealed. We insist on playing and working and living on the staging and catwalks, when we could open the door of the temple and step inside.

'Cause, you know, inside is where God keeps all the good stuff.

Really, we can go inside.

Really.

Inside!

When the shark bites...

2010-02-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

Feb. 1, 2010 06:27 PM
Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A teenage New Zealand girl bitten by a shark bashed it over the head with her body board until it let her go...

You know that shark will never be able to show its face around the school again. "Dude, you got your caudal peduncle kicked by a girl? Looooooooo-zer!"

Hey! Wait a minute...or as long as it takes...

2010-02-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

Young's Literal Translation of Isaiah 40:30 - 41:1 reads:

30 Even youths are wearied and fatigued, And young men utterly stumble,
31 But those expecting Jehovah pass [to] power, They raise up the pinion as eagles, They run and are not fatigued, They go on and do not faint!
1 Keep silent towards Me, O isles, And the peoples pass on [to] power, They come nigh, then they speak, `Together -- to judgment we draw near.'

I might state it this way:

The mightiest of men will lose strength and wear out, but if they will wait expectantly for the Lord, they will pass from weakness to power. They will spread their wings to soar like eagles, they will run without tiring, and walk without weakening. God calls out, "Be still and silent toward me in your weakness, you mass of humanity. Be still and silent, and wait until you have passed from your hopeless weakness to the great strength I have promised. And when you have gained that strength, spread your wings, stretch your legs - fly, run, walk into my presence and speak to me and hear my decrees."

Conventional wisdom says that when we are worn-out, we should just keep putting one foot in front of the other. We should continue trudging along until eventually we arrive at our destination. But, what if our destination is the presence of God? What if our task is to speak with Him, and hear His answers? If we are plodding along, have we not already succumbed to weakness and fatigue? If we do reach an audience with God in that condition, will we have the strength to carry on a conversation?

When we feel that we are just barely stepping along in our spiritual walk, when all our effort is expended in just making the smallest amount of forward progress, maybe that is precisely when we should stop struggling. Perhaps that's our signal to sit still, hush up, and wait expectantly for God's provision of strength. How long do we wait? Until the wind fills our wings and we lift into the sky. Until the blood races in our veins and we can't sit still, but have to get our feet moving. In other words, as long as it takes.

But, what about all the progress we aren't making while we sit? What about all the cars that are passing us on the freeway while we languish in the roadside rest area? I think Isaiah teaches us that if we wait expectantly for God's strength, we make greater progress by sitting still than we do by plodding ahead.

More True Romance

2010-01-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a couple of friends over to talk about worship and music and such things. We sang a couple of songs that I recently wrote, and talked a little bit about how they came to be. I explained that lately I will start playing my guitar and gradually a song emerges, and then Pam suggests a Psalm to go with the flavor of the music. Sometimes it will be the same Psalm I'm thinking of.

We're having more friends over today to talk about what God is doing in and around us. At breakfast this morning, Pam told me what she intended to serve our friends for lunch. I suggested she might add celery to the dish. Turns out she originally planned to do so, but had forgotten.

So, I told her, "You're the Psalm in my music and I'm the celery in your soup."

She replied, "That ranks right up there with washing your hands after a kiss."

So, I figured it was good enough for a Sunday-morning post. Probably not a Saturday Evening Post, though...

Shepherds

2010-01-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

Who are the shepherds of God's flock? I believe that there are a great many shepherds out there who don't really recognize that they are involved in shepherding ministry. I think that anyone who cares for another's spiritual needs at any level is a shepherd, if only on a small scale.

I am also convinced that God is raising the bar for those who shepherd His flock.

How do God's shepherds learn to care for God's sheep? Over the years we've been subjected to story after story about the methods sheep herders (those that care for the woolly kind of sheep) supposedly use to keep the sheep in line. How they make the sheep behave. How they keep the sheep alive in spite of the animals' innate stupidity. Honestly, I doubt that many of those stories are true. Perhaps if we lived for a year with a Navajo or Hopi sheep-herding family, we might get some real insight into the ways of shepherds with their sheep in a desert land. But whether the old stories are true or not, or whether we try some extreme method of learning how to care for woolly critters, I suggest neither has much to do with a Biblical model of shepherding. These stories and methods all focus on making the sheep do something or act a certain way. But that does not help us to understand how God wants His sheep cared for.

So, I suggest that we attempt to model our shepherding practices after the perfect Shepherd - God Himself. Where do we look for advice from God's viewpoint? I think Psalm 23 might be a good place to start.

Psalm 23 is, of course, written from the viewpoint of a contented sheep. It is preserved for us, conveyed to us in Scripture, so that we sheep can understand and trust the provision and protection offered by the Great Shepherd - God. So, I would never claim that the point of the psalm is to teach shepherds how to take care of sheep.

However, it makes sense that to shepherd God's flock, we should imitate God's methods, strive for God's results. So, I think it is profitable to look at Psalm 23 from the point of view of a shepherd, to see how we should care for God's sheep.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The sheep that God shepherds are not in want. They lie down in safety and security in abundant pastures. They drink from still, clean watering places. The path they follow is intended to profit the owner of the sheep.

Do we care for God's sheep in this way? Is our concern that the sheep lack nothing? Do we provide them a place to feed on the best greenery, at rest in rich fields? Do the sheep drink from quiet, clear waters? Do we lead them along a path that leads to God's glory?

Or do we give all the best grass to our sacred cows? Do those sacred cows wade brazenly into the waters, stirring up the mud and dropping piles of manure into the streams? Are our traditions eating up and destroying the resources that the sheep need? Is our way of "doing church" devouring the food and spoiling the water that God would have given to the sheep if he were at the front of the flock?

Do we find the paths that seem easiest for us, regardless of their destination? Is our road the one that leads to God's glory, or is it one that attracts us because of its familiarity, one that we have traveled so many times that it is easy, comfortable, and automatic? Never mind that it leads in futile circles, or ends up in our own barn instead of in God's house!

Do our sheep not follow where we are leading? Perhaps we should re-evaluate our course. Maybe we need to make sure we are, in fact, leading them into God's glory, and not into our own desires. Unfortunately, the temptation is strong to give up leading and turn to driving in order to impose our will upon the so-called "wayward" sheep.

The Good Shepherd cares for his sheep so that they have no fear. Even though their path may lead into the most dangerous places, their Shepherd has proven that he knows the way through, and that His skill in weapons will bring the flock through in safety. Sadly, when the flock shows fear, many human shepherds "comfort" the rod and staff right across the sheeps' noggins.

When God's sheep are surrounded by enemies, He exalts them and gives them a place of honor so that the foes know they have no footing to attack the flock. When the sheep are criticized by enemies, do we exalt them or throw them under the bus (or to the wolves!)?

God's sheep walk in love and kindness up the trail that leads to God's house. I'm afraid that many of the sheep entrusted to us walk in paths of selfishness (ours) and pride (also ours) and end up inside our own barns, as though they were our sheep.

So, to quickly recap - let's look carefully at our sheep. Let's listen to them, even if they bleat things we don't care to hear. Are they confident that we are feeding them, and not using them to support the herd of sacred cattle? That any attacker who wants to take their lives will have to get past us first, and stands little chance of doing so, because we are ready, willing, and able to defend them? That when they are criticized, we will show them honor? That our goal for them is solely to deliver them in safety and good health to the House of their Owner? That we have no agenda for them that includes our own enrichment or enlargement?

If they do not have this sort of confidence, will we first look to our leadership skills, or will we blame their stupidity and stubbornness, and turn our rods on them to break their legs so they learn to obey us?

True Romance

2010-01-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

I was reminded this morning of the meaning of true romance - or the true meaning of romance...

True romance is holding your wife's hand while you pray before breakfast, kissing her hand when you're finished praying, and not minding when she immediately gets up to wash her hand because she doesn't want to catch your cold.

Fired News Day

2010-01-15T08:00:00.018-07:00

It's back! Just when you thought it was safe to go back to my blog...

Hopefully no one was really that naive...

One quick news item, but it's really an important one. I think it brings a new and sorely needed voice to the debate over legalizing marijuana:

Jan. 14, 2010 09:56 AM Associated Press

KINSTON, N.C. - An undercover drug buy led North Carolina detectives to an underground marijuana garden in a buried school bus.
Multiple media outlets reported Thursday the Lenoir County Sheriff's Office had been looking for the source of the marijuana for three years and had been flying over the area with a helicopter.
Then sheriff's narcotics officers bought several pounds of pot in a recent undercover buy. Sgt. Eddie Eubanks says officers traced the pot to a rural residence.
A search dog fell through a camouflaged trap door leading down to a full-length school bus buried 8 feet under a backyard tool shed.

The way I see it (and no, I really don't care if anyone thinks that a man with a village in his head can be thought to have a somewhat suspect outlook, especially in regards to pharmacology), if marijuana were legal, there would be no reason to push the limits of technology as these enterprising souls have done. Re-purposing an old school bus, developing sophisticated techniques of camouflage and concealment, providing premium growing conditions in an underground bunker - just a few of the strides these inventors have taken. Their work has huge implications in waste-recycling, military applications, and survival in harsh environments - even on other planets!

I tip my hat to you, Mr. "Grew-my-pot-in-a-buried-school-bus-under-a-storage-shed-in-rural-North-Carolina-for-three-years-without-getting-caught" Man!

All because pot is illegal. Legalize marijuana? I respond with a resounding "No!" Make it even MORE illegal!!! Stimulate the inventive, innovative, competitive spirit that made this country great!

Of course, it might bear mentioning that anyone ambitious enough to bury a school bus 8-feet-deep, erect a tool shed over it, and carry on the work of farming underground, may not actually be a habitual marijuana user.

Just sayin'...

Psalm 23:4 - Wild God Version...

2010-01-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Warning: The following post employs an indelicate term. This is because sometimes there are things that must be said, but cannot be said delicately.

PSALM 23:4:
When I walk through a valley that is plunged into blackness by the very shadow of death,
I will fear none of the skulking evils lurking in the darkness awaiting an opportunity to jump me,
For I walk with a bad-ass Shepherd, Who watches out for me on all sides;
He carries weapons, He is not afraid to use them, and He has mad skills.

I can think it, I can write it, but I don't know for sure I can walk it...

New Year's Resolution Trial Run

2009-12-28T13:12:00.005-07:00

I am thinking about making my first New Year's Resolution in many a year. In an attempt to make my outlook on life more positive, and less cynical, I'm considering altering my speaking habits to put an end to negative statements. For instance, why say, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch," when it serves just as well to say, "Wait until those chickens hatch before you count them."?

With that in mind, I've attempted to rephrase a few old sayings, to make them positive, affirming statements instead of negative warnings. I'd like all six of my faithful readers, if you're still there after these many weeks of silence, to let me know what you think. It's kind of like those quizzes you used to find on the back of cereal boxes. I even thought about putting the answers upside down at the bottom of the page. I got a real laugh thinking about everyone turning their computer monitors upside-down to read them. Then I realized how hard it would be for me to turn my monitor upside-down to type them...

Anyway, do these restated homilies make sense? Can you tell what I'm trying to say? Is anything lost in the translation?

You can have your cake as long as you eat someone else's.

When you come up with a new trick, you get to buy a new dog.

Cry over your milk while it's still in the glass. Laugh at it when you dump it all over the floor.

Give away all your wooden nickels.

You can squeeze turnip juice from a turnip.

You can make bricks as long as you have all the ingredients.

A leopard can change his direction.

You have a choice - chickens or omelets. (OK - this is a mix of two pithy sayings.)

You can make a silk purse out of silkworm byproducts.

Dead horses are the best.

Nature loves brooms and mops.

Fried News Day

2009-12-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears that Jesus has been pretty busy in recent weeks:

Man says image of Jesus appears on truck window
Nov. 4, 2009 01:28 PM
Associated Press

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Jim Stevens, of Jonesborough, said nearly every morning, an image that looks to him like the face of Jesus Christ has appeared in the condensation on the driver's side window of his Isuzu truck.
____________________________________________

Woman sees image of Jesus on iron
Nov. 27, 2009 12:15 PM
Associated Press

METHUEN, Mass. - Mary Jo Coady first noticed the image Sunday when she walked into her daughter's room. She says an image of Jesus Christ she sees on her iron has reassured her that "life is going to be good." She and her two college-age daughters agree that the image looks like Jesus and is proof that "he's listening."
____________________________________________

Disruptive Jesus Christ removed from jury pool
Dec. 2, 2009 11:21 AM
Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Court officials say a Birmingham woman who changed her name to Jesus Christ didn't live up to it when she reported for jury duty this week. The woman, previously named Dorothy Lola Killingworth, was sent to Judge Clyde Jones's courtroom for a criminal case Monday. Court officials told The Birmingham News Tuesday that the 59-year-old was excused because she was disruptive and kept asking questions instead of answering them.

Efforts to reach Christ for comment were unsuccessful.

Obviously they didn't try the iron...

Why Christians can't add...

2009-11-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

I ran across this quote (I don't know who first said it) on a site called "roflposters.com":

Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

At first I reacted very Baptistically. That is to say, I was offended. Fortunately my Baptistic lapse lasted for far less time than my actual Baptistic period. Unlike the various periods attributed to those famous painter-guys like Picasso and so on, I painted nothing during my Baptistic period. Well, a room or two, and maybe a picnic bench. But that is a tale for another post. Or not.

At any rate, on roflposters.com, viewers are allowed to comment on the posters. After my initial reaction passed, I expressed my true feelings in a remark, remarkably similar to the following:

Half deliberate distortion, half pretty good paraphrase of how poorly many of us explain and/or live our faith, and half a good laugh at our expense. Yeah, we don't always add too well, either - that's how we get OK with the Trinity...

Fried News Day

2009-11-13T13:18:00.001-07:00

What is it with folks in Tampa these days?

Fla. wedding goes wild as guests throw punches

by Tammie Fields - Nov. 10, 2009 10:07 AM WTSP-TV, Tampa, Fla.

Tampa Police say around 9 p.m. during the reception one guest became upset when the groom started tossing money onto the dance floor for the children to scoop up. The groom and his brother confronted the guest and asked him to leave. Tempers flared and some pushing and shoving took place. Some of the wedding guests chose sides and that led to an all out brawl that spilled out into the parking lot. Investigators say nearly 40 people were involved. The fighting ruined the reception and some of the guests and wedding party members headed to their hotel nearby where the fighting erupted all over again in the parking lot of the Marriott Residence Inn. A woman put the groom's 74-year-old grandmother, Mary Wright in a choke hold.

Really, what would I add to that story?
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Woman drives into aquarium at Tampa airport

Nov. 10, 2009 10:52 AM

Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. - The driver and the child in her lap survived when a pickup truck slammed into a 1,500-gallon aquarium at Tampa International Airport. Airport officials say 36-year-old Yamile Campuzano-Martine lost control of her truck and drove into the saltwater tank outside the American Airlines baggage claim Monday night.

Maybe she was on the lam, trying to get out of town quick after choking an old lady at a wedding...
______________________________________________

Fla. man calls 911 seeking phone sex

by Joshua Basso - Nov. 13, 2009 10:09 AM WTSP-TV, Tampa, Fla.

TAMPA, Fla. - In emergencies, 911 dispatchers will go to great lengths to help out callers. Unfortunately for 29-year-old Joshua Basso, needing sex is not one of those emergencies. Police arrested Basso at his home Wednesday for making false 911 calls after he dialed the number looking for sex. He said he made the calls because his cell phone was out of minutes and 911 was the only number he could call for free.

"Uhhhh, yeah...911? Yeah, I need some lovin', 'cause my girl got herself busted for running into that aquarium at the airport when she was runnin' away from that wedding where she choked the old lady..."

But why does the 911 caller have the same name as the guy credited with writing the article?

Fried-News-Day

2009-10-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Special Halloween Edition!

Vampires vows at Ohio wedding
Oct. 5, 2009 09:18 AM Associated Press

COLUMBIA STATION, Ohio - Sixty-one-year-old Jack Holsinger and 44-year-old Connie Spitznagel were both made up as pale-faced vampires for their scare-emoney Saturday night at a haunted house near Cleveland. The two chose the location because it's operated by the same people who own a campground where the couple met. Holsinger arrived in a coffin inside a hearse, and the coffin was carried to the altar by six pallbearers. Minister Greg Kopp was dressed as Jason in the "Friday the 13th" movies. After the vows were exchanged, he ordered Holsinger not to kiss his new bride but instead to bite her on the neck.

Those crazy kids! Let's check back in a couple of centuries and see if they're still together. Most of the undead I know really don't stay together any longer than that. Eventually they end up fighting over the silliest things - she sends him to pick up some takeout, and he brings home a type-O-positive waitress, when she wanted an A-negative male firefighter...
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1,725-pound pumpkin takes the prize in Ohio
Oct. 7, 2009 10:13 AM Associated Press

CANTON, Ohio - A teacher from Ohio has won top honors in a pumpkin-growing contest with a 1,725-pound behemoth that could land worldwide bragging rights.

Unfortunately, at midnight it turned back into a carriage.
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Lung stolen from exhibition of human cadavers
Oct. 6, 2009 06:34 PM Associated Press

LIMA, Peru - A traveling exhibition of human cadavers wants a stolen lung back. The left lung was taken in Peru from "Bodies: The Exhibition," which has traveled the globe displaying cadavers preserved through a process that replaces water in biological tissues with polymers. The organ disappeared from an area where visitors can touch preserved cadavers.

The thief, a priest for a secret society of modern-day Incas, has collected almost enough body parts to restore life to the mummy of the great Inca king, Atahualpa, who will rise from the dead to wreak revenge on the Spaniard invaders for kidnapping and killing him.

Coming to a theatre near you: Mummy 4 - Revenge of the Sun King!!!
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Woman gets $570K from ex in dough-mixer suit
Oct. 12, 2009 01:22 PM Associated Press

You can't really blame her for divorcing a guy who wears a dough-mixer suit.
____________________________________________________

Police: 300-pound man in dress tries to steal rum
Oct. 16, 2009 10:19 AM Associated Press

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Police said a person believed to be a man disguised as a woman in a black dress tried to steal a bottle of rum and cola drinks from a local drug store. The store's loss prevention officer unsuccessfully tried to stop the person, who is described as about 20 years old, 6-foot-3-inches tall and weighing 300 pounds.

Buddy Holley said it best ... almost ... sort of ... :

Saturday night I was downtown
Working for the FBI
Sitting in a local drug store
Whiskey bottles piling high

A pair of 45's made me open my eyes
My temperature started to rise
She was a long cool woman in a black dress...

Oh, HELL, no!!!!
____________________________________________________

Man walks from Texas to Wash. with 12-foot cross
Oct. 6, 2009 02:16 PM Associated Press

ABERDEEN, Wash. - A man walking from Texas to his hometown in Washington state has had a cross to bear for months. James Strickland says he's been dragging a 12-foot cross from Longview, Texas, to his Aberdeen home since May. He says he hopes to reconcile with the mother of his two children.

Sounds like a great idea for a song:

I'm walkin' up to Washington, in the sun and in the rain
'Cause I wanna trade this rugged cross for my old ball and chain
My old ball and chain...wooo-ooo...
_____________________________________________________

Church plans to burn Bibles, Christian books
Oct. 14, 2009 12:27 PM Associated Press

CANTON, N.C. - A North Carolina pastor says his church plans to burn Bibles and books by Christian authors on Halloween to light a fire under true believers. Pastor Marc Grizzard told Asheville TV station WLOS that the King James version of the Bible is the only one his small western North Carolina church follows. He says all other versions, such as the Living Bible, are "satanic" and "perversions" of God's word. On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church also will burn music and books by Christian authors, such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren.

The church's web site says that they will be serving barbecue chicken at the book-burning. I guess you have to give them credit for not wasting a good fire.

Conventional Wisdom

2009-10-26T17:12:00.007-07:00

It's just a dead stick that used to be the flower stalk of an aloe vera. It neither promises future flowers, nor reminds anyone of past flowers. It's just a dead stick, white and brittle. It's been standing right there, in the middle of my garden, for more than half a year. Once it held up flaming orange candles of flowers. Now it's just a stick. A dead stick.

Conventional Wisdom cries out, "Cut it off! Throw it away! It serves no purpose!"

Anyone who ventures out onto the patio can - no, must - see it standing forlornly out there, across the little lawn, in front of the pool, in a rock-framed planting bed. Conventional Wisdom says that sheer laziness is the only reason to leave it there. It's a dead stick.

Conventional Wisdom so closely scrutinizes its garden calendar, so carefully studies its rules of landscape maintenance, that it only sees a dead stick that needs removal. And so, Conventional Wisdom never sees the dragonflies that frequently rest upon the tip of that spent flower stalk. The dead stick that becomes a throne for kings and queens of the air, garbed in irridescent armor. The dead stick that serves as a vantage point from which to spot prey. And predators.

Conventional Wisdom asserts that the dragonflies (the ones it has never seen) would find another place to rest if the dead stick were removed. Yes, they probably would.

But, because the dead stick stands in such a place of prominence, anyone who ventures out onto the patio can - no, must - occasionally consider these sparkling regents of the insect kingdom resting almost weightlessly on their dead-stick throne. Conventional Wisdom's plan would only allow us to catch a vague glimpse of them as, on gossamer wings, they pass over one garden that is free of dead sticks, searching for another that welcomes them with a simple luxury that invites them to rest their regal bodies.

In my garden, as in Conventional Wisdom's, dragonflies are as welcome as dead sticks. The question is, how warm is the welcome?

Star Wars Theology

2009-10-06T16:00:00.003-07:00

I know I'm not the first to find (and share) gems of wisdom in the Star Wars trilogy, nor do I expect to be either the last, nor the best. But I do expect to be another...

In Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Yoda gives this outstanding piece of advice to Anakin - "Train yourself to let go of the things that you fear to lose." What a powerful way to live that would be! What a shield against fear, jealousy, anger, resentment, and covetousness, just to name a few sins and temptations.

Because it is fear that drives Anakin Skywalker to turn to the dark side. Fear of losing his wife. And the very thing he fears comes to pass - because of the actions he takes that are prompted by those fears! What if he had simply lived by faith in his ability to survive loss? What if he refused to take on an impossible-to-fulfill level of responsibility for her well-being?

Fear is the root motivator for far too much "Christian" behavior. Fear of breaking God's rules. Fear that our children might end up believing something unbiblical. Fear that we will lose some blessing, or some person, or some thing! These kinds of fears prompt us to take actions that oftentimes bring about the very consequence we fear.

Sometimes, fear-prompted actions look very similar to love-prompted actions. And many times, they are quite alike - maybe separated by only a degree or so of variance. But that 1/360th of a circle, over time and distance, can land us in a very different place. One we thought we were going to avoid.

For instance, we can - and should - manage money well. We can do it out of fear of losing our money, or out of love for the One Who loaned it to us in the first place. The management principles are pretty similar, but the difference in motive will inevitably lead to choices that make divergent paths.

The same can be said of raising children, serving others, performing in our jobs, relating to our spouses, relating to our parents, relating to our siblings, etc.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But perfect love casts out all (unproductive) fear. Love is by far the better motivator, the one that will take us successfully to the goal. Too often we focus on what we do, and pretend that is what proves our motives. Not so! We need, each and every one, to first be very sure of our motives - our "feelings," in Star Wars terms - and then move forward.

Is our motive in raising children to raise strong, successful adults, or is it the fear that we may not raise strong, successful, adults? Is our reason for working hard and long at our place of employment that we respect (a form of love) our employer, that we are thankful (a sign of love) to our God? Or is it that we are afraid of what will happen should we lose the job?

What is it that we are afraid to lose? As we each figure it out, maybe we can help each other in training to give those things up.

Some Rattlingz and a small portion of Friednewsday

2009-10-02T09:25:00.010-07:00

If you've watched Wednesday's epic movie, you may have noticed the dashing hat worn by the male lead. My brother, looking at the original photographs, commented, "I like your hat." I have to agree with his taste in headgear. It's my official adventure hat. Because an expedition is only as great as its best hat...
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There is a silent epidemic among us. Once called BBS (Bony Butt Syndrome), it has recently been given the more picturesque designation of "Assorexia." The juvenile version is called "Bunorexia." This malady prevents a person from gaining weight in their posterior, regardless of their overall size and fitness level. Oh, I know that many of you are saying, "Pffft! I'll take it!" Sounds great to have a small bum, eh? Just try sitting on the danged thing. Even cushioned chairs feel like granite boulders, and picnic benches become jagged ledges with razor-sharp spikes. And don't even get me started on trying to sit on the ground!
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This word is not in the dictionary, but I think it's a good one and should be added as soon as possible:
Procreastination {pro-kree-ass-ti-nay-shun} - the practice of putting off pregnancy and childbearing for a more opportune time.
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Endangered Ugandan gorillas join Facebook, MySpace
Sept. 27, 2009 02:57 PM
Associated Press

For a minimum donation of $1, fans can befriend a gorilla on Facebook or MySpace or follow it on Twitter. The money will be used to hire extra rangers to protect the gorillas and safeguard their habitat.

Sounds like a pretty good idea. However, their lesser-known relatives, the Nigerian gorillas, remain content to run e-mail scams aimed at defrauding Americans out of millions of bananas.

Short feature

2009-09-30T14:07:00.004-07:00

Here's a little video I threw together last night. Nothing fancy, just having some fun with some pictures. The sound track gets a little monotonous - not enough to make your ears bleed, I hope - but feel free to turn it down if you want to.

Fried News Day

2009-09-25T15:13:00.007-07:00

Just one story today, but it's a good one, I think:

Sept. 25, 2009 07:12 AM Associated Press
BANGKOK - A gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, an environmental group said Friday.

Lee Grismer, of La Sierra University in California reported, "We were engrossed in trying to catch a new species of gecko when my son pointed out that my hand was on a rock mere inches away from the head of a pit viper."

Grismer's careless actions, and the fact that he came to no harm because of them, caused a great stir in the scientific community, with many researchers questioning, for the first time, the widely-accepted scientific doctrine of "survival of the fittest."

Just a few of the animals discovered include:

1) A baldheaded song bird in Laos called the barefaced Bulbul Pycnonotus hualon.

Is it just me, or does that sound like something Gabby Hayes would call the crooked land baron in a John Wayne movie - a barefaced Bulbul Pycnonotus hualon?

2) A new bird species called the Nonggang babbler that favors walking to flying.

Researchers discovered the bird by following the males' unusual cry -"If God had meant for birds to fly, He'd have given them...oh...right." When they got closer, the team heard the females' response - "Shut up, you old buzzard - you're babbling again."

3) A tube-nosed bat named Murina harpioloides.

Not a new species at all, but previously unknown in Southeast Asia. Formerly the only specimen known to science was found in a third-grade classroom in a small Arizona town. Colleagues and acquaintances almost never used her given name, "Murina," opting instead for the more formal "Miss Harpioloides." Kids got in big trouble if they were ever caught calling her a tube-nosed bat. She threatened to sic her fanged frog on us ... I mean them ...

Fried News Day

2009-09-18T09:40:00.004-07:00

Well, at last the news-makers are off their diets!

But first, a quick stop in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary for a word of the week:

Coca-colonize - to bring (a foreign country) under the influence of U.S. trade, popular culture, and attitudes.

Which is all very interesting, of course, but right now we have bigger news to fry...

Sept. 18, 2009 09:21 AM Associated Press
ITHACA, N.Y. - A group of upstate New York dog owners plans to compost the tons of dog doo deposited by the roughly 50,000 canines that use the city's dog park annually. If their pilot project is successful, the Tompkins County Dog Owners Group and Cayuga Compost hope to market usable compost within the next two or three years.

Just think - this means that Fido can fertilize the plants before he digs them up...
______________________________________________________

Sept. 17, 2009 03:08 PM Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Astronomers have found the coldest spot in our solar system - at the moon's south pole. The area is inside craters that are permanently shadowed so they never see sun, and it's colder by one degree Fahrenheit than far away Pluto.

First of all, let me just say that I have officially scratched that place off my vacation list.

And what's up with poor Pluto? First it gets demoted from planet status to dwarf planet, and then it gets bumped into second place for coldest spot in the solar system. Don't be surprised if it just packs up its moon and goes home...
______________________________________________________

Sept. 17, 2009 11:10 AM Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. – A 16-year-old girl has bagged a 10-foot alligator in a South Carolina swamp. In the middle of the night. With a crossbow. Her family has 40 pounds of alligator steak in the freezer now.

Not to mention a nice pair of shoes and a killer custom bag for that crossbow...
______________________________________________________

Sept. 17, 2009 02:30 PM Associated Press - Dominican agents find cocaine in dictionaries

I checked. Sure enough, I found cocaine in my dictionary, too. Right after Coca-colonize...

Cyberdoodling with Grace

2009-09-17T15:15:00.011-07:00

When I was a kid I would doodle. I know that doesn't distinguish me as any sort of prodigy; pretty much all kids doodle (OK, I confess - I still doodle!). Nor have I ever been noticeably better than average as a doodler. But, like probably anyone who has ever doodled, I have occasionally experienced that thrill when a few lines and curves and squiggles suddenly align themselves into a really cool drawing.

Of course, the only time that ever happens is when you're doodling on the most tattered, dirty, useless scrap of something that might once have been paper. Try to reproduce your creation on a real surface, and it just won't work. On the throw-away fragment it's an amazing interpretation of a mako shark torpedoing through the mysterious deep. On good paper it vaguely resembles an old, almost shapeless house-slipper.

That's the beauty of the blogosphere. Here you can doodle with words until some of them magically arrange themselves into a real thought. Everything is throwaway and everything is preserved, so all your mako sharks hang out with your old slippers. In fact, I'm pretty sure that somewhere around here I have a lovely sketch of a mako shark wearing an old slipper...

The other day, while responding to someone's response to someone else's comment on another person's original post in connection with some news item, I accidentally said something that made sense. Thanks to Blogdom, my scribble on a multiply-used post-it note with all the corners torn off can be easily transferred to the fine stationery you see before you now.

It's always easier to extend grace to people we think don't really need it...

We all seem to have an internal scale by which we grade other people's faults. We grade their actions based upon execution and degree of atrocity. It's like we're judges at a sin-nastics meet. But our scoring is pretty much arbitrary, and personal. We each judge based on a different set of criteria, which we, ourselves, choose.

But we are rarely balanced in our application of standards, either. What we see as a horror in one person is nothing more than a misstep when done by another. Well, within certain bounds, of course. But those bounds can stretch a lot further than most of us would ever think, or care to believe.

I'm not talking about whether or not we should be happy to meet Idi Amin in heaven, as compared to overlooking a poor choice of words about AIDS from the lips of Billy Graham. On the other hand, I could just as well be comparing a man known as the "Butcher of Uganda," to one once voted the "Greatest Living American," because really, if it isn't equally administered, is it truly grace?

But let's forget about extremes. Grace, in order to be gracious, must be given without degree or favoritism. That isn't easy. It's just so natural to wish for, trust in, and see God's grace the most in people who offend us the least.

It's always easier to extend grace to people we think don't really need it...

Joining A Hero

2009-09-08T21:43:00.002-07:00

A little over a year-and-a-half ago, my friend, Rex Miller, shot me an e-mail describing the work that Steve Peifer is doing in Kenya. It's work that earned him recognition as a CNN Hero in 2007. In brief, he establishes computer-training centers for children, and provides meals for them while they are at school. It turns out that one of the biggest obstacles for children staying in school is that they need to find food during the day.

Check out some of the videos on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=steve+peifer&search_type=&aq=f

You can also read about his work at this site:

http://kenyakidscan.org/

His passion and mission moved Pam and me to add our financial support - in an admittedly modest amount - to the contributions of others to his work.

Steve sends out regular e-mail updates. Here's an excerpt from a recent letter:

The rains haven't come and it has gotten more desperate here. The term ended with most schools running out of food 10-15 days before the end of the term; we just didn't have the money to buy enough.

One sentence stopped me in my tracks; my heart sank; tears ran down my cheeks:

We had a meeting with all of our computer teachers, and they reported that the biggest challenge for them was to teach when students were crying because they were so hungry.

On the website above - http://kenyakidscan.org/ - you can click the tab labeled "How You Can Help," and there are links that allow you to add your own support to the lunch program, the computer labs, and/or the Peifer family directly. Let me just say that I don't remember any of Steve's e-mails talking about his personal finances, so I don't really know how much he might need in that area. But I do know that children are crying with hunger when they could be learning computer skills. And we all have the chance to help one person who is doing something to change that.

The Rest of the Story...

2009-09-01T08:48:00.006-07:00

I almost didn't post the previous post that I posted. It wasn't really happy happenstance that led to my discovery that my sister's stepson's girlfriend's mom's boyfriend's ex-wife is my boss' sister.

It all started with a trip to Tucson to stay with my sister and brother-in-law. Together, we then made a journey to spread my parents' ashes (along with the cremated remains of two dogs) in an undisclosed location in the Chiricahua Mountains. On the way back to Tucson from the mountains, my brother-in-law got a phone call from his son. It was bad news about his (the son's, not the brother-in-law's) girlfriend's mother.

The following Monday, my boss dropped by my office and gave me an update about her trying weekend, which involved a story that ended with the same sad news that my brother-in-law received in the car on Saturday.

Finding out that my boss' sister's ex-husband's girlfriend (whom I had never met) was also my sister's stepson's girlfriend's mom, meant finding out that this young woman died tragically of complications from back surgery. A blood clot that lodged in her brain.

So, I was a little afraid it might seem disrespectful to post a humorous take on an overall tragic situation.

But then I heard about the plans for Becky's memorial, including a cocktail party. A fancy, dress-to-the-nines, and don't-even-think-about-wearing-black, cocktail party. It was something Becky always wanted to do while alive, but she just hadn't quite pulled it off, yet. And from what I've heard from everyone who knew her, Becky was a lover of life and living, a really joyful person and a joy to know.

And so I decided that she would probably get a really good laugh out of our six degrees of separation. And she would want others to share in her merriment.

It just wouldn't have been right to keep it to myself.

Still on a news-free diet

2009-08-28T12:07:00.003-07:00

100th post!!! Wow - it seems like just a year and a half ago I was rattling about blaming France for the weather, and look at me now!

While fighting an epic light-saber battle, Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker, "... I am your father."

In the midst of a similar, but somewhat less-than-epic struggle, Dark Helmet tells Lone Starr, "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."

Without wrrrrrrrm-ing and weeooww-ing a deadly, almost unstoppable shaft of light around the office...
Without slicing through hapless furniture and fixtures...
Without losing a limb or any subdivision thereof...
I have discovered that my sister's stepson's girlfriend's mom's boyfriend's ex-wife is my boss' sister.

Luke Skywalker's reply to Darth Vader's revelation: "No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!"
Vader: "Search your feelings. You know it is true."

Lone Starr's response: "What's that make us?"
Dark Helmet: "Absolutely nothing! Which is what you are about to become."

Me: "So, what are we doing for Christmas this year?"

I'm still waiting to hear, but I hope she doesn't think I'm not going to make other plans if she doesn't respond pretty soon...

News on a Diet

2009-08-21T08:36:00.005-07:00

We're not having any fried news today. Apparently the oddballs of the world and the press that covers them have all gone on a diet.

So, to fill the unbearable gap this dearth of material leaves in the lives of my faithful blog-followers (all six of you), I will share a few true rattlingz. Here is a selection of stray things, that might once have been thoughts, bouncing about in my brain. In point of fact, the citizens of Psychovillage are tired of all this stuff flying around, breaking windows, and making it unusually hazardous to venture outdoors. They petitioned me to get rid of some of these stray items.

As though the inside of my head is a safe place, with or without flying rattlingz. They really need to be more worried that I may wake up one morning and decide to enroll them all in a math class. Not just any math class, mind you. Oh, no - I'd sign them up for something like Advanced Absurdity Theory, wherein they would be required to determine the value of blue as a function of Przewalski horse migration and scissors.

OK, now I lost my train of thought. Actually, I think a gang of train-of-thought robbers has holed-up in Psychovillage. Or maybe that's just the movie playing in the village theatre - The Train-of-Thought Robbers. You know, the one with...

The main difference between introverts and extroverts can be summed up as follows:
Say the word, "fun" to an extrovert and immediately he will think of gathering up a bunch of people and running off to do something. Say the same word to an introvert, and he will immediately think about gathering up a bunch of extroverts and sending them all off to do something.

Actually, it might be The Great Train-of-Thought Robbery.

For a long time it made me nervous to find myself in social settings, faced with the following ice-breaker activity - "Tell us your name, where you're from, and what you do for a living." Luckily I have overcome that awkwardness. My solution is to simply repeat the name and origin of the last person who spoke. For my living, I claim, "Identity theft."

Or maybe it was just the train in Breakthought Pass...

Fried News Day

2009-08-14T13:10:00.003-07:00

Let me begin with a headline sent to me by one of my "good-friends-Ed:"

Canadian Mounties break up erectile dysfunction drug ring

Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Montreal seized thousands of counterfeit pills intended for the erectile dysfunction market.

The best part is Ed's comment, "For some reason, I thought of you when I saw this."

Thankfully he went on to explain, "No, not any association with the condition or the drug."

He thought it might make a good addition to my blog. Now, you have to know that it's really, really difficult (note that I avoided the use of the four-letter word for "difficult") to comment on this article without having to place my blog in the "adult content" warning section. I can't talk about the impact that counterfeit pills have on the legitimate market. I mean, how can you even address a market report without using words like "rising," or "falling?" Has there been a softening demand for the real stuff? Did the Mounties catch the crooks with their pants down? Did they meet stiff resistance during the raid? Curse, you, Ed, for sending me a target the size of an oliphaunt, knowing full-well I can't open fire on it with anything close to my full arsenal.

Not to mention how I can never again think of Sergeant Preston or Dudley Do-Right without being reminded of erectile dysfunction...
_______________________________________

As long as Ed has thrown this whole post into the gutter anyway:

Aug. 12, 2009 Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - An Arkansas death-row inmate allegedly passed love letters to a guard and committed a sex act with her before supervisors discovered their illicit romance, documents obtained by the Associated Press show.

When ED pills are outlawed, only outlaws will have ED pills...

If your girlfriend is also your prison guard, you just might be a redneck...

Heck - you might BOTH be rednecks...
________________________________________

While swimming in the gutter, I found these headlines - no comments necessary:

Probation for man in woman's swimsuit

Man pleads not guilty to naked doorbell ringing

Woman in drunken breast-feeding case jailed

Man denies fondling 2 in prom dresses

Woman in glued-penis case speaks out

Man, what a weekful of weirdos!
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And here's the one that just ices the cake:

Man convicted of groping Minnie Mouse at Disney

Guard - "So, whatcha in for?"
Prisoner - "I groped Minnie Mouse."
Guard - "Ooooo, I like your style. Wanna be my illicit boyfriend and trade love letters and stuff?"

If you get arrested for groping Minnie Mouse...

Manufacturing Facts

2009-08-10T15:06:00.002-07:00

I recently discovered that a lady by the name of Wu Hou was once Empress of China. I planned to make a comment about how her name led to today's exclamation of "WooHOO!" when something exciting happens to us. Because, of course, one would think that becoming Empress of China would be a cause of some excitement in a woman's life.

However, I then found out that Wu Hou is not pronounced "woo-HOO," but rather, "WOO-hoe," which would take the discussion in an altogether different direction. One much less suited to what I had in mind. One that perhaps would discuss not the immortalization of a name, but the immoralization instead.

I was going to claim that while we owe Wu Hou for the phrase wooHOO, we also owe a lesser-known, but equally important, Chinese figure for his contribution to the English language. That would be, "Yee Ha," the name of the first (and perhaps only) Chinese bull-rider in rodeo history. In honor of his accomplishments, his name has been immortalized in the cowboy cry, "Yee-Haw!"

This leads me quite naturally to the topic of manufacturing facts. If, in fact, you remove the fact from manufacture, you end up with manuure. Oddly fitting for a tall tale about a fictional bull-rider...

Fried News Day

2009-08-07T08:14:00.003-07:00

Yes! Back in spite of popular demand, it's Fried News Day!

Let's start with "Attack of the Killer Groundhog"
Associated Press
BOONTON, N.J. – Police in northern New Jersey needed pepper spray to thwart a groundhog on the attack. Boonton resident Alex Scott told police the rodent chased him when he entered his garage and tried to get his truck. Police Sgt. Mike Danyo and Officer Paul Ryan said the groundhog went on the attack when they arrived.
Police said Danyo tripped and fell. His partner sprayed pepper spray into the groundhog's face, giving the officers time to snare it.
The animal was euthanized and its remains will be shipped to the state health department for rabies testing.

Groundhog, groundhog, whatcha gonna do? A-whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Unless euthanized first.
_________________________________________________

Continuing the theme of "Rodent Uprising"
Associated Press
TUCSON - A rodent somehow found its way into a substation, and left 7,600 Tucson Electric customers without service Tuesday.

Coincidence? I hardly think so. Homeland Security definitely needs to launch an investigation into possible ties between this critter and the New Jersey groundhog. Sounds like terrorists are training rodents to attack American law enforcement personnel and infrastructure. We need to launch immediate countermeasures.
__________________________________________________

And, speaking of counter-terrorism tactics
Donna Abu-Nasr - Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Many in this ultra-conservative kingdom, where husbands and wives rarely even kiss in public, have been scandalized by a Saudi man who spoke frankly about sex on a satellite TV program, showing off erotic toys and fantasizing about joining the mile-high club.
More than 200 people have filed legal complaints against Mazen Abdul-Jawad, dubbed a "sex braggart" by the media, and many Saudis say he should be severely punished.
"His punishment should be as harsh as his sin," said lawyer Mohsen al-Awajy. "He has outraged everybody."
Abdul-Jawad was detained last Friday for questioning.

So, some Saudi goes on TV bragging about sex and the whole country rises up and throws him in jail. Some other Saudi goes on TV bragging about destroying America, and no one can even find him. I think the CIA needs to manufacture a video of Bin Laden talking about sex.
__________________________________________________

And there you have it - all the news that really isn't worth mentioning without proper editorial commentary. Stay tuned for a politically-incorrect investigation into certain contributions to American language and culture, as well as the official Bishop etymology of the word, "manufacture."

Road Trip Summary

2009-07-22T11:53:00.006-07:00

Well, we survived the Great Road Trip of '09. Here's a summary:

We drove through portions of 11 states - Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.

We visited White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, Badlands, Black Hills (Including Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, and Reptile Gardens), Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon (North Rim), Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest. Oh, and the Too-Much-Time-On-Your-Hands National Monument, more commonly known as the world's largest ball of twine, in Darwin, Minnesota. And Roswell, New Mexico, whatever that is...

We also visited the homes of five family members.

We travelled 4544.1 miles.

We spent 16 days.

We used 150 gallons of gas.

We took 2709 pictures. That's an average of 246.27 per state. 0.6 per mile. 18.06 per gallon. I don't know if that's very good performance - neither the owner's manual for the car, nor the one for the camera, gives any estimates for pictures-per-gallon.

We bought some Black Hills Gold jewelry (in the Black Hills, of course - a ring and earrings), a Native American flute (in Utah), and a chunk of petrified wood (where else?). We also bought some fun stuff at a thrift store in Elbow Lake, MN.

We saw many examples of that automotive palindrome, "a Toyota." But we did not encounter the fabled Japanese-car graveyard known as "The Subaruins."

We skipped our planned stop in Dodge City, Kansas, for lack of time. We missed the exodus of 400,000 or so bats from Carlsbad Caverns at dusk because there was too much lightning in the area, and the park rangers made us all leave the park. We didn't see any condors at the Grand Canyon or around Marble Canyon, and we passed the turn-off to the Vermilion Cliffs release point well after dark. So, we saw no condors. We also drove the last part of the Badlands, South Dakota, in the dark. So, not everything worked out just as we had hoped.

Pam had fun snapping pictures through the the windshield as we travelled. I had fun enjoying her fun. We'll both have fun looking at all the pictures and weeding out the ones we don't want.

Driving through Colorado, we paralleled the Colorado River for many miles. A day or so later, we saw the Colorado River where it flows through the Grand Canyon. I wondered if we were looking at some of the same water. I know we drove faster than the river runs, but we also stopped at a motel in Torrey, Utah, for the night, and drove a less-direct route. Not to mention stopping a lot more often to take pictures. I couldn't tell from the rim of the Grand Canyon if any of the river water looked familiar.

All-in-all, it was a great trip, and we're looking forward to future road trips, though probably not as long (because it's hard for me to get away from work for that much time in a row), and probably with a tent.

Road Trip Day 14

2009-07-16T19:42:00.003-07:00

We left Torrington, Wyoming this morning a little after 7:00, and we're now settled into our room in Torrey, Utah. What we saw of Wyoming was interesting, but a bit on the desolate side. The drive through Colorado was gorgeous. We left I-28 just West of Green River, Utah, headed South on Hwy 24, through Capital Reef.

As we approached Capital Reef, the earth around us began to morph into other-worldly shapes. At first, many of these looked sterile, like dead tailings strewn around an abandoned mine. A mine dug haphazardly by some juvenile giant and his toy shovel. But as we moved into the park proper, everything changed. There was the green of cottonwoods luxuriating in the moisture of terra cotta - colored streams looking like someone dumped an unimaginably large can of paint somewhere up in the mountains.

The vision and industry of man showed itself as well. Ancient petroglyphs decorated some of the smooth cliff faces, and the more recent contributions of hardy farmers brought green crops, black, brown and tan livestock, and multicolored buildings and machinery to many a flat space nestled between...

...The real genius and labor. Rock formations twist into shapes that defy definition, sculpted by some Cosmic-sized Artist, Who removed every last chip of rock that did not belong, but took not so much as a fleck that did.

Tomorrow we're off to enjoy more Earth-sculpting in Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon.

Road Trip Day 13

2009-07-15T22:50:00.002-07:00

Well, here we are in Torrington, Wyoming, back online after many days of Internet deprivation.

Actually, we could have had Internet service last night in Rapid City, South Dakota, but I just plain refused to pay $3.00 on top of the premium price charged for a barely-average room.

So, it's midnight and I need to get some rest, so this will be brief.

Visited with Pam's family until yesterday, including a day on the lake catching a few walleyes.

Yesterday we drove through the Badlands, and today we drove around the Black Hills, including, of course, Mount Rushmore, and not enough else. We got a late start because I had to wait for a store to open where I could replace the battery charger for my camera. Apparently I left my other one somewhere in New Mexico...

Tomorrow we'll get to see something of Wyoming other than headlights approaching at wide intervals.

Road Trip - Day 6 - Elbow Lake

2009-07-08T13:31:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm sitting outside the public library at Elbow Lake, Minnesota. As soon as I'm done here, we'll go visit Pam's sister, Charlotte for a couple of days.

On the way up here I got a warning for speeding. In appreciation of the nice officer giving me a warning instead of a ticket, I'll travel only the speed limit the rest of our time in Minnesota.

Last night at Curt and Barb's house, their three daughters came over to visit. Pam's nieces are pretty close to our age, so their kids are all in high school or later. It was nice to visit, and will probably result in our spending an extra day in Minnesota. Roger told me he lives 10 miles from one of the best walleye lakes in Minnesota. I'm just going to have to see if he's telling the truth!

Road Trip - Day 5

2009-07-07T07:48:00.004-07:00

Well, we went Internet dark for a couple of days. Comfort Inn in Salina, Kansas had a great room and lousy Internet service.

We drove to Salina from Carlsbad Sunday night. Stopped for a few minutes in Roswell. Didn't see any aliens, but saw a few true believers, I think. We stopped at a rest area somewhere on the Llana Estacada. Very, very flat plain. Except for the hole in the parking lot that I stepped in while taking a stroll to take some pictures of an abandoned house off in the brush behind the rest area. I fell right flat and heard my camera bounce at least twice on the pavement. Fortunately it seems to still be working. So do I, although I had my doubts about my ankle for a while.

That's kind of a story, too, I guess. When I got up Friday morning, the day we left, I could hardly walk. I have some calcification of the tendons or cartilage or something that's not supposed to be bone in my heel and ankle. I have occasional arthritis attacks in that area, but Friday's was the worst ever. I used a cane to get around, and started taking Ibuprofen right away. By the time we got to Carlsbad Caverns I was fine. But I was pretty sore again after tripping. Today it aches a little, but it's not bad.

Somewhere along the road we saw a big sign advertising the Dalton Gang's hideout. Doesn't seem like much of a hideout if they have a big sign on the outskirts of town. In town we saw another sign - "Hideout - 4 Blocks." Turning to follow the arrow, we passed a sign every block - "Hideout," with an arrow pointing the way. Then we saw the sign indicating the location of the notorious Daltons' hideout and escape tunnel. If it's that easy to find, it makes you wonder how the Daltons stayed on the loose for so long. Unless it's all a decoy...

Along the way we passed through Pratt, Kansas. Seems like we know someone from Pratt...

And here we are in Lake Benton, Minnesota, staying with Pam's brother, Curt and his wife, Barb. Internet access will probably be spotty for a while, but I'll update when I can.

Road Trip Day 2 - Howdy from Carlsbad!

2009-07-04T20:32:00.003-07:00

Visited Carlsbad Caverns today. Took gobs of pictures, but really, pictures can't even begin to show what an awesome place it is. Trying to catch it "on film" is kind of like trying to capture a moment of God's moving, and then pass it out to everyone who wasn't there. Good thing no one ever tries that!

We took the Natural Entrance hike down into the caverns. We went very slowly, not because we can't walk quickly, and not because we can't walk quickly on a steep downhill grade for a mile or so. We went slowly because we just couldn't go quickly in that place. It's a very sacred place - a place that was God's alone for a very long time, and a place He must have really enjoyed wandering through.

At the bottom of the Natural Entrance Trail is the beginning of the Big Room Trail. There are also restrooms with flush toilets. 750 feet below the surface of the ground. So where exactly do those toilets flush to? Naturally I had to ask a park ranger. Turns out they flush into a holding tank, and every once in a while the waste is pumped to the surface for disposal.

The Big Room is ... well ... really, really, BIG! And filled with sights carrying enticing names like "Rock of Ages," "Bottomless Pit," "Chinese Theatre," and such. Part of the Big Room is very wet and actively forming new cave stuff. Part of it is quite dry. It turns out that when they built the visitors' center and all the parking, they blocked rain water from draining through the rock underlying the building and parking lot. Kind of like the way putting up a building and parking lot can cut off the supply of Living Water to a church. Oops - did I just say that in my outside voice???

We wanted to see the bats leave the cave in the evening - apparently it's a wonderful sight. But there was too much lightning nearby and the flight viewing was canceled. Bummer! I guess we'll have to go back sometime...

So, here we are in Carlsbad. We found a motel room on the second floor, and as we walked up the stairs to our room we noticed fireworks soaring into the sky all across the horizon south of us. At least two professional displays were visible, and countless "backyard" projects as well. We're not used to that in Arizona, where fireworks aren't legal and available as they are in New Mexico. Best part was that God lit up the whole sky with His own fireworks, sending spiderwebs of lightning all over the night. I'm not sure whether He was just joining in the fun, or if He was showing everyone how it's done, but we enjoyed it greatly.

Off to Roswell and parts North tomorrow!

Road Trip Day 1 - Greetings from Artesia!

2009-07-03T20:37:00.002-07:00

Well, here we are in beautiful downtown Artesia, New Mexico. We left Phoenix this morning, and drove pretty leisurely until midafternoon. It rained hard, but not blindingly, about 20 minutes before we got to White Sands. One lightning strike off to the side of the road had just about zero lag time between flash and crash, so it was pretty close. Not close enough to hear the snap of lightning or smell the electricity, though. The weather was clear, hot and humid by the time we got to White Sands, and stayed that way for much of our time in the dunes. It clouded up later and got really comfortable.

After leaving White Sands we drove through Alamogordo into the mountains. That was one of the nicest drives ever. It rained lightly most of the way through the mountains, but once the rain stopped we opened the roof and enjoyed the 60-degree weather.

There were a couple of very-deserted houses falling to ruin along the route today. Whenever I see places like that, windows and doors and roof all missing, I wonder about all the people who lived there once-upon-a-time. What were their dreams? How did they make that place a home? Whatever happened to make it more reasonable to abandon than to dwell there?

Anyway, here we are in Artesia, in a bargain-room motel on the South edge of town. It has doors, windows and a roof. Also a decent bed and a clean bathroom. And free Internet access. We're planning to head south to Carlsbad Caverns in the morning. Afterward we're thinking about going to Roswell to watch fireworks and UFO conspiracy theorists.

Hopefully we'll find another affordable motel with Internet access so I can update tomorrow!

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Results

2009-06-30T10:04:00.003-07:00

If you love to laugh until your bladder cries for mercy...
If you love the most skilfully-written godawful sentences ever penned...

You have to check this out:

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm

Named for the author who first began a story with those unforgettable words, "It was a dark and stormy night," this is a celebration of the very best horrible writing the English language has to offer.

Fried News Day

2009-06-19T11:55:00.001-07:00

Mr. Yukio Oumi, of Nakanotomachi, Japan, recently found 13 dead fish around his house. The fish, apparently small carp, lay on the back of his truck and on the ground.

Besides the usual suggestions of tornadoes passing over a lake and sucking up the fish, and Godzilla sneezing during a feeding frenzy, scientists have posed the following possible explanations:

1) North Korea is experimenting with some bizarre payloads in its long-range missile tests.

2) God was getting one of those fish-pedicures when He was suddenly called away to an emergency. As He leapt to His feet, carp were scattered everywhere, and some fell on Mr. Oumi's driveway.
_____________________________________________________

A 27-year-old Mesa man drove through the block wall of a Chandler home and ended up in the pool after an apparent suicide attempt Tuesday morning. The man positioned a 24-inch sword through the steering wheel and tied it in place with a T-shirt. When he drove through the wall, the airbag deployed and bent the sword. The man was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, including a cut in the neck from the sword. It is unknown whether he will be charged with any crimes.

I really, really, really try hard not to make fun of people going through hard times, and this guy clearly has some serious problems. Not the least of which is his Wile E. Coyote plan for committing suicide. But I do have to wonder why there would be any doubt as to whether he will be charged with any crimes. I don't think there is a criminal stupidity statute in Arizona, but certainly it would not be unreasonable to consider charges of trespassing, reckless endangerment, destruction of property, and probably a few more. Granted, the worst attorney on Earth could probably make a convincing insanity case, but I say they should charge him anyway, and let a jury of his peers decide.

The hard part will be to find enough of his peers to fill a jury box. Besides that, who in their right mind would want HIS peers to judge their case? Wait - my bad - I guess the "right mind" portion probably doesn't apply.
_____________________________________________________

All in all, I think I'd rather find a bunch of dead carp in my driveway than a car in my swimming pool.

Signs...and wonder-whys...

2009-06-03T08:14:00.008-07:00

When Jesus said that it is a wicked and adulterous generation that looks for a sign, I'm sure He was talking about a miraculous sign, which is very different from the kinds of signs I see displayed in front of churches that I pass on my way to work. Nothing miraculous there, hey! What He might say about the generation who posts these signs...well, I won't indulge that speculation. I'll just throw out a few rattlingz generated by some signs I've seen recently.
_______________________________________

The "Used-to-be-Baptist-but-now-operating-under-a-new-name-because-probably-they-read-some-book-that-said-'unchurched'-people-stay-away-from-churches-with-the-word-Baptist-in-their-name" Church has once again posted their schedule of pagan rites. See March 11, 2008, for my first mention of this oddity. They removed this particular item for a while, but now it's back:

Sun Worship 10:45 A

Apart from the fact that it seems odd for a nominally Christian organization to offer sun worship as part of its ministry palette, I just have to wonder if 10:45 is really the best time to worship the sun. I'm no expert on pagan orthopraxy, but it seems as though sunrise would be a more usual time for sun worship, except perhaps at the solstices. But maybe today's American pagans pursue their faith approximately as lazily as American Christians follow our own.
_______________________________________

Speaking of worship, I saw a sign that advertised two distinct services, though I have forgotten the times posted for each:

Praise worship...

Traditional...

Apparently it has not been their historic tradition to praise or worship during church services. After all, it's not like the God of the universe is...oh, wait...hmmmmm...never mind.
_______________________________________

And while I'm talking about the God of the universe, this sign puts Him into some sort of perspective, I guess:

When you get to your wit's (sic) end, you'll find that God lives there.

Is saying, "I'm not going to say that if you don't know that the saying is wits' end, not wit's end, you really shouldn't be posting signs anyway," the same as saying it?

But, grammatical challenges aside, this message annoys me. It just seems to squarely center God's nature on "me," as though the official word from God is, "I'm there for ya, bro." Once again, as it has many times recently, this quote (attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau) comes to mind - "God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor."

Not that God isn't "there" for us, or that we can't find Him when we're at our weakest. I just don't think that's where He lives. Or that those things are particularly large parts of His place and work in this universe.
______________________________________

Which brings me to another odd sign, one that I have smiled at for some time, now:

Bishop Ernest - Pam Jones

At the risk of offending, am I the only one who thinks this sounds a little transgendered or at least cross-dressed? I guess if you saw the old sign, you could guess easily enough that Ernest got a promotion that Pam did not. It used to display the names:

Pastors Ernest & Pam Jones

Or maybe it was:

Pastors Ernest - Pam Jones

Either way, it was easy enough to follow the old sign. The new one is a little wonky.

I don't know Ernest Jones. I'm sure he's a great guy and a Christ-follower. But it seems to me that maybe he was so anxious to get that "Bishop" title up there that he didn't really care what the rest of the line looked like.

"Bishop" or "overseer" was once a function that some people fulfilled in the community of Jesus-followers. There wasn't any particular job description attached - just someone who oversaw things. Big things, small things, simple things, complex things, single things, multiple things...just things that needed overseeing.

But then churchianity decided that "bishop" must be an office in the church, and that the Bishop usually should have an office in the church. I don't find it very comforting that "office in the church" so easily takes on two meanings that should be so diverse. Once describing the work that people did in the course of living in a community of faith, terms like "bishop," "apostle," "pastor," became official jobs within a hierarchy.

But now we live in a time which has made these words more trivial still. Now they are nothing more than titles handed out by a parent body, or taken by individuals as they see fit, with little or no relation to a real role in the community of believers, or any assembly thereof. By giving the words themselves more and more importance, we have robbed them of their beauty and power. We have placed ourselves on the losing end of a sorry trade - the simple, elegant, graceful beauty of "having the oversight" for the empty privilege of "being the Bishop."

We have lost the respite of the mustard seed that sends mountains packing, and gained the labor of endless effort that won't cure a hangnail.

Cacti

2009-05-31T17:03:00.006-07:00

Here are a few pictures of some of my cacti. Unfortunately, most cactus flowers only last one day and I missed a few plants in full bloom yesterday.

Anyway, enjoy! And, as always, clicking on the pictures at ~~left~~ right should bring up a larger image.

Fried News Day

2009-05-29T13:07:00.002-07:00

Word for the day: Triptych: a picture or carving in three panels side by side; something composed or presented in three parts or sections
__________ __________ __________

Associated Press SAN DIEGO - Officials in San Diego who want to prevent seals from taking over a popular beach plan to seek court approval next week to use recordings of barking dogs scare the seals away. Critics of the scheme say the seals will simply get used to the noise and come right back.

Hey - anyone need some good, used cds of barking dogs?
__________ __________ __________

Associated Press RANKIN INLET, Nunavut - Canada's governor general ate a slaughtered seal's raw heart in a show of support to Canada's seal hunters. Governor General Michaelle Jean, the representative of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as Canada's head of state, gutted the seal and swallowed a slice of the mammal's organ late Monday after an EU vote earlier this month to impose a ban on seal products on grounds that the seal hunt is cruel.

Maybe when the seals in San Diego get used to the barking noise, officials can play movies of Ms. Jean eating a seal's heart. That should scare them off.
__________ __________ __________

Associated Press HOLDEN, Maine - A project involving conservationists and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists is looking for a few dozen people willing to howl like wolves in Maine's North Woods. The Wolf Inquiry Project plans to conduct "howling surveys" in several areas this summer in hopes of discovering whether wolves are resettling in Maine. The Bangor Daily News said coordinators are seeking individuals willing to spend a night howling in the woods and who won't be scared off if they get a response.

You know, if the people don't work out, there may be some dog-barking recordings available from San Diego pretty soon...
__________ __________ __________

Fried News Day

2009-05-14T16:24:00.007-07:00

Recently I have noticed an alarming dearth of interesting news items, resulting in a sad lack of Fried News Day posts. This week, however, that has all changed ...

Beginning with breakfast, we have this from the Associated Press:

Police say a Needham, Massachusetts man who was stopped for erratic driving on Central Avenue last week was eating a bowl of cereal and milk while he drove. He told officers he was hungry. Police didn't know what kind of cereal the driver was eating.

Does it make a difference?
_________________________________________________________

Moving to international news from the Associated Press:

MADRID - A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona contains not only the expected pollutants, but is also laced with at least five drugs - most prominently cocaine.

On the heels of this report, Spain has observed a sudden upswing in tourism...
_________________________________________________________

In other "strange-things-in-the-air" news, the Associated Press reports:

Police in Clinton, Maine say a 500-pound moose fell 18 feet to its death when it apparently leaped a guardrail on an Interstate 95 overpass and landed on Hinckley Road. Officials learned of the incident when a motorist called the town office shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday and told assistant town clerk Shirley Bailey that "a moose just fell out of the sky."

Last time, you remember, our friends Rocky the Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Flying Moose were ... what? It's the squirrel that flies, not the moose?

Wait, Bullwinkle! Don't try to...

Dang.
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More out-of-the-blue news from the Associated Press:

GENEVA - A rare 7.03-carat blue diamond sold for more than $8.4 million Tuesday, the highest price ever for a gem of its kind, according to auctioneers Sotheby's. The successful bidder will have the privilege of naming the gem.

I would name it "Steve." "Steve" is a nice name.

Or maybe Blue Diamond Phillips...
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And having more-or-less mentioned celebrities, let's add this item:

Dolly Parton was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

I'm not sure, but I heard a rumor that it was a Ph-Double-D...
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And speaking of well-endowed female forms:

Associated Press READING, Ohio - A sexy mannequin can keep her spot outside a Cincinnati area barbecue joint, but local officials want her to cover up a bit more. The life-size figure stands as a busty beacon outside a restaurant in suburban Reading, wearing a bikini top and tight short-shorts. According to the owner of the restaurant, the advertising gimmick has boosted business 40 percent. Members of the Design and Review Board indicated they were concerned about "community norms."

This is weird. Just plain weird. Has the Design and Review Board ever walked through a mall?
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And finally, in the oxymoronic world of archaeological news:

Associated Press BERLIN – A 35,000-year-old ivory carving of a busty woman found in a German cave was unveiled Wednesday by archaeologists who believe it is the oldest known sculpture of the human form. The carving, apparently intended to hang from a cord, was found in six fragments in Germany's Hohle Fels cave. It depicts a woman with a swollen belly, wide-set thighs and large, protruding breasts. "It's very sexually charged," said University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard, whose team discovered the figure in September.

It originally hung in front of an ancient barbecue joint, increasing the owner's business by a reported 40%. But the local cave council got together and decided it was too racy, so they broke it into pieces. As a result, the restaurant went out of business, and Neanderthals, lacking a place to find good mammoth ribs, starved into extinction.

“Sunday Setlists” blog carnival at FredMcKinnon.Com

2009-05-04T08:58:00.004-07:00

OK - I'm going to give this weekly blogging exercise a go.

Check it out at http://www.fredmckinnon.com/myblog/2009/05/03/sunday-setlists-41/

Of course, I won't participate weekly for the following reasons:

1) I don't lead worship weekly.
2) I don't show up for church meetings every week.
3) I don't blog regularly.

So, yesterday (Sunday) afternoon I was catching up on some recorded Leno episodes from last week, and caught Ziggy Marley singing a catchy little tune - "Family Time" I think - with a chorus that went like this (you'll have to imagine the melody, but I'll bet you can find it on YouTube if you want):

Lift up your heart with a smile
Lift up your feet with a dance
Lift up your spirit with a song
It's family time, it's family time.

So, I sang that a couple of times to get folks' attention at our church meeting last evening. It worked for maybe half the gang.

Then we broke into smaller groups and talked about what we would boast about that God has done for us in the past week, year and lifetime; read some Scriptures about praising Him to others; and prayed for freedom to do so.

4 Songs:

1) Majesty is Your Name (song from within our community - we've been singing it for a couple of years

2) You Are So Good To Me (Ben Pasley, Robin Pasley, Don Chaffer - it's on one of the Worship Circle recordings - chorus goes "You are beautiful, my sweet, sweet, song...")

3) First Song (song from within our community - new to the larger gathering last night, has been done before in one house church)

4) Revelation Song - Jennie Lee Riddle

I turned the volume down on my (acoustic) guitar between practice time and singing time, and forgot to turn it back up again when we sang. Yes, I should have noticed, but I don't always really hear the room sound - depending on where we decide to set up the players. So, all I heard was acoustic anyway, and that didn't change, so I didn't notice until afterward when I went to turn the volume off and found it was already there. Oh, well. Small room - people could hear, just not as well as if I was boosted. Sound man had to go home to sick wife and injured child after setting up, so didn't have him there to come over and check out what was wrong.

As usual we had bread and cup available in the middle of the room for folks to take as and when they wished. Also as usual, there was a steady trickle of people during the singing time.

A few people prayed together here and there, off and on.

After singing we spent a little while waiting in silence, then a few people shared words and thoughts that came to them during our singing time. Then we, as a group, shared scriptures and praises and crises and all manner of things that were on our hearts, discussing and, in Malachi 3:16 style ("Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard.") prayed for each other.

At the end, someone wanted to sing another song - a song that would make us stand up for God - and someone else suggested "How Great Is Our God." I don't know it well enough without a chart, so we sang it archipelago.

Reimagining Church

2009-04-29T09:35:00.005-07:00

A while back, I wrote a few comments about Ed Chinn's book, Footprints in the Sea. I began with this thought:

If print can clamor, then we are surrounded, immersed, nearly overwhelmed by a thunder of pages rightly proclaiming the flaws of today's church structures. Book after book appears on the shelves pointing out the failings of Western Christianity.

Frank Viola has added a significant voice to that crowd in his book, Reimagining Church. The differences between his approach and Ed Chinn's are dramatic. Ed calls us on our ideas about Jesus. Viola deals with our failed doctrine and practice of church structure from biblical, historical, and practical perspectives. One book confronts our muddled image of the Christ, the other dismantles our muddled image of His body and bride.

Unlike Footprints, Viola's book is filled with very pointed instruction about the who, what, where, and how of the church, from God's perspective as set forth in Scripture. Because his proposed solution includes rather the opposite of top-down, hierarchical governments and building-based ministries and passive throngs of believers, his book is predictably controversial. And his less-than-gentle language does nothing to smooth any ruffled feathers.

Ed Chinn's writing makes you think of comfortable chairs filled with old and new friends, scattered around well-used tables holding favorite beverages, all in a room smelling of history, and filled with unrushed conversation. He would hand you a fine cigar. Frank Viola might offer to light it for you - with a flamethrower.

Don't get me wrong - I love Viola's book. I picked it up thinking that in my case he would be preaching to the choir. I soon found that the choir in his church is very, very small, indeed. More than once I found myself in the congregation desperately searching Scripture and logic for a way out of his conclusions. I was not particularly successful.

If I have any criticisms of Reimagining Church, they are pretty small and in no way detract from his message. Let me just mention one - I don't like the title. While it's a great phrase on its own, it does not compliment the thrust of the book.

"Reimagining" is really how we got into this mess in the first place. We (Western Christianity) have repeatedly and insistently reinvented God's plan for organic simplicity, substituting instead a government-and-business-based organization. I have to doubt whether we can find our way out of this wilderness by using the same tools that led us astray. "De-imagining" might be a better fit.

Even more unfortunate, I think, is his use of the word, "church." I say it's time to throw out this misnomer altogether. The early forms of this word all denote a building in which worship takes place. It is thought to have entered the English language from the Greek kuriakon, "the Lord's house." It is part and parcel, maybe even a cornerstone, of the rotten foundation of building-based ecclesiology wherein we view church as a place to go to.

I think you should read the book. Just don't get mad at me when your toes find their way under Viola's heavy feet.

The Gang - or is it a pack?

2009-04-27T10:54:00.002-07:00

He wears head-to-toe shiny black. Like a fearsome gunman he struts boldly down the rocky embankment. He stops at the water's edge, his piercing eyes scanning the broken terrain, watchful for any possible threat. Satisfied that he is alone, or at least in the company of lessers, he dips his head and catches a few sips. In a few moments, his companions rustle their way down to the water, spreading themselves in a defensive pattern that allows them to monitor all approaches. These newcomers are smaller than their leader, and their garb more muted, in dull shades of brown.

Something in their coordinated movements is uncomfortably predatory, almost saurian. The cold, golden gaze of the watchers protects the more vulnerable drinkers and bathers. But they take turns, each taking full advantage of the water, as well as spelling the sentries. A sharp, brief cry from one sentinel jerks every head at once to stare suspiciously in the direction of possible danger. Mouths opened threateningly, and bodies tensed menacingly, they wait for any further sound or movement. Satisfied there is no threat, the group resumes their activity.

With their cowboy swagger they could be a gang of outlaws fleeing from the tight end of a rope, and stopping at a wilderness watering hole to recharge.

With their unblinking yellow eyes and synchronized, hunter-like movements, they could be a pack of velociraptors visiting a Jurassic Park lake.

Or they could just be a little flock of grackles taking advantage of my backyard pond for their morning refreshment.

Memories of Lake Havasu City

2009-04-20T14:35:00.002-07:00

It was one of those days. One of those days when it seemed like the sun woke up early. I don’t think he meant to, though. I think it was the infernal racket of a townful of folks trying to get something done before it got too danged hot to even think about working. But, whatever the cause, Sol was definitely awake. And he was not happy. He spent a little while sulking redly behind a scruffy haze that probably owed more to desert dust than to future raindrops. But it didn’t take long for something (who knows what?) to set him off, and then he broke out of his bad mood and roared into a worse one. If you were lucky enough to find some shade, his rage topped-out at around 126 degrees. No one bothered (or maybe they didn’t dare) to measure or guess how hot he thundered out in the open.

It was one of those days when blacktop got soft enough to flow ever-so-slowly down the steep hills, leaving small ripples in the surface of the streets. A solo trail of lonely footprints crossed one gooey boulevard, as though some minor messiah had walked miraculously on its wavy, black surface. Perhaps he braved the sunstorm to rejoin and reassure some heat-prostrate disciples. If so, he still did nothing to calm the solar tempest.

It was one of those days that made you glad you’d turned off the water heater a few weeks ago. On a day like this, water pouring from the “cold” spigot could scald you. It was good to have a tankful of water cooling down so you could turn on the “hot” faucet to temper the boiling output of the “cold” one.

It was one of those days when you no longer cared that no matter how much sunlight fell on your driveway, you never had to shovel it.

It was one of those days in summertime Arizona…

Footprints in the Sea

2009-04-01T08:44:00.004-07:00

If print can clamor, then we are surrounded, immersed, nearly overwhelmed by a thunder of pages rightly proclaiming the flaws of today's church structures. Book after book appears on the shelves pointing out the failings of Western Christianity.

With his contribution to this conversation, Footprints in the Sea, Ed Chinn proves that he is as interesting and easy-to-listen-to in print as he is in person. He opens the door on yet another of America's church secrets - all the "re-something-ing" we have done to our view of Jesus, nominally the head of this whole thing. He sheds truth's light on today's rethought, reconsidered, reimaged, redesigned, rebuilt, and often "reeee-diculous" image of God's Son.

And, as he would over a cup of coffee or a glass of something stronger, he bluntly refuses to offer a solution. He avoids presenting yet another vision of a path to a new resurrection of Jesus' body by "re-something-ing" church. Instead, he leaves scattered but clearly-defined clues that should allow us to find our own way out of whatever failing - or failed - church structure we wish could be different.

His arguments unfold almost like a novel, only the plot is real, not imagined. We join his walk from simple and inspiring stories of his own beginnings, to truths that, in the words of another friend, Glen Roachelle, deliver "a left hook" to many people's definition and theology of church.

Buy the book. Read it. Talk about it.

http://www.coolriverpub.net/ Click on the tab "NEW RELEASE - FOOTPRINTS IN THE SEA"

Fried-News-Day

2009-03-27T10:19:00.003-07:00

In archaeological news:

Mar. 23, 2009 12:08 PM
Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece - A Greek fisherman cast his net in the Aegean Sea, and instead of a load of fish, he hauled up a section of a 2,200-year-old bronze statue of a horseman.

"See, Agamemnon, if we take all the junk in your attic, and dump it right here, we can raise the level of the ocean."

"OK, Archimedes, let's start with this gods-awful statue of a guy on a horse. Are you sure we can raise the sea level and give our houses beachfront views?"

"Well, it worked in my bath tub..."

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In astronomical and interstellar relational news:

Mar. 24, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A meteorite stolen in 1968 from Meteor Crater east of Flagstaff, Arizona has been returned unharmed. Just who took it and where it has been for the past 41 years remains a mystery.

The rulers of Glx!!clm**chlakh^^X immediately issued this statement:

We agree to cancel our planned destruction of your worthless little world now that you have found our missing citizen. However, until the kidnappers are apprehended, we will continue to blacklist Earth as an undesirable vacation destination. There are plenty of other planets where we can spend our hard-earned xnixdixth!!mnrkles...
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And in herpetological news:

Mar. 20, 2009 08:54 AM
Lisa Halverstadt - The Arizona Republic

A pet African spurred tortoise, weighing 75 pounds, escaped from its owners' yard and was found obstructing traffic in Surprise, Arizona.

The owners believe Hercules may have jumped their fence, or possibly rushed out a side gate that was left open for only a day or two...

What-the-pedia? And some Fried-News-Day!

2009-03-20T07:53:00.006-07:00

Wikipedia is a great concept. And, by and large, it's a great resource as well. There are, however, certain drawbacks to user-supported media.

Take the Wikipedia article on the City of El Mirage, Arizona. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mirage,_Arizona

Along with helpful information from the US Census, and the Latitude and Longitude of the City, there is this comment which seems more editorial than coldly factual:

El Mirage SUCKS

If you need to see it in context to truly appreciate the humor, you'd better hurry and take a look. Because, unless El Mirage truly "SUCKS," some merciful user will delete this bit of information. And therein lies the strength of user-supported media.
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Meanwhile, in the news...

Gastronomy:
(Mar. 12, 2009 09:58 AM Associated Press)

Britain's most famous restaurant (Fat Duck) reopened more than two weeks after it shut due to a mysterious outbreak of sickness that left 400 people reporting bouts of vomiting and diarrhea.

Menu items include snail porridge, jelly of quail, mustard ice cream, and bacon-and-egg ice cream. And yet, somehow, it's unusual for patrons to suffer bouts of vomiting and diarrhea?

Geography:
(Mar. 17, 2009 01:06 PM Associated Press)

A new Brazilian geography text book for sixth-grade students doesn't include Ecuador on the map. In fact, the book distributed by the education ministry in Brazil's most populous state botches the location of most of Brazil's neighbors. Paraguay is switched with Uruguay, and a second "new" Paraguay is shown with a coastline at the southern tip of Brazil. Bolivia is fortunate enough to appear on the map, but the book misses its border with Paraguay - the Paraguay that sits where Uruguay should be, that is.

All is not lost, however. Publishers of the book were quick to point out that every map correctly depicts the location of Waldo.

And in something oddly akin to Geography:
(Mar. 12, 2009 10:50 AM Associated Press)

EASTON, Pa. - A man accused of driving drunk said Pennsylvania courts have no jurisdiction over him because he's his own country.

I have no problem with this man wanting to be his own country. However, when his country gets drunk and invades our country, he needs to be stopped.

And speaking of people who are not closely associated with their own rockers:
(Mar. 19, 2009 03:47 PM Associated Press)

HART TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Police say a naked 14-year-old boy taking a walk with a large white poodle assaulted a woman in Oceana County. Sheriff's Lt. Craig Mast tells the Ludington Daily News the boy walked away from a behavioral treatment facility Monday. He was strolling unclothed in Hart Township with the dog when he encountered a 53-year-old woman in her yard. Mast says, "The young naked man approached her with this poodle, and she immediately realized something peculiar."

I'm not sure this article requires any commentary. But I do have to wonder where he got the poodle...

On Knowing and Understanding

2009-03-17T09:00:00.003-07:00

In his new book, Footprints in the Sea (buy it here - http://www.coolriverpub.net - do it now - you can come back to my blog later - I won't be offended) Ed Chinn writes:

We just don't seem to know (Jesus) well enough to have intelligent or even interesting conversations about him. In one sense, we only have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of him. So, we just end up saying what others have said others have said others have said others have said about him.

I read these words today while munching my tequila/lemon/serrano pepper - marinated tilapia left over from yesterday's lunch. Ed's thoughts connected with something that I was chewing on this morning. Not my breakfast.

I'm not sure that contemporary America really wants to know God. I think that in our rational, technological, one-plus-one-equals-two, industrialized American mindset, our definition of "knowing" God is really "understanding" Him. We have been taught that "knowing" something is not enough - we must understand whatever it is that we are studying.

In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing. However, over time this approach to learning has blinded us to the possibility that there is anything beyond our understanding. And by His very nature, God is simply just that - beyond our understanding. To know Him is to recognize how little we truly understand Him. But we have been taught that when we apply proper analytical tools to a question, we will reach understanding.

I'm not trying to say that there is nothing we can understand about God; I'm just saying there is a limit to what we can truly grasp. We say that God is a person, and He is. But often His "person-hood" becomes, for us, a notion that misleads us into believing that He is psychologically the same as we are. That we can psychoanalyze the God of the universe to understand His motivations. That human-derived analytical tools can deliver the full truth about He Who is the Way, the Truth and the Light. They cannot.

This is not a new challenge. It is the very foundation of demonic nationalism (or denominationalism, if you prefer). It is the reason that seminaries, whose stated purpose is to train "godly servants" and "students of the Bible," really churn out marching ranks of apologist drones adept at defending denominational distinctives.

And in the final analysis, it is why, as possibly-my-best-friend-in-the-whole-world-to-whom-I-am-not-spouse-or-parent, Ed Chinn, continues, "No wonder we'd rather talk about ourselves." Because the only god we can truly understand is the one who looks an awful lot like us. And we have been carefully taught that conversation about things we don't understand is nonsense.
Sometimes it is. But when it comes to God, the only conversations that matter are the ones that verge upon, indeed that even cross into, the realm we do not and cannot understand. Some of those conversations will contain a large dose of nonsense - but when we analyze that nonsense we will find that more often it springs from lack of accurate knowledge than from lack of understanding. What we think we know is often really nothing more than a reflection of who god would be if we were he.

Why did God warn Joseph and Mary to take His Son out of harm's way by fleeing Bethlehem, but allowed every other father (and mother, for that matter) to suffer the loss of their sons? I know He did it. I know He could have saved all those children from death and spare their parents from grief, and even deliver Herod from that added measure of guilt. I know He didn't do that. I just don't understand why.

But I'm talking about more than simply finding facts that seem to go against the nature of God as we ... as we ... as we ... ummm ... understand it ... humph! I'm talking about giving up on human analytical tools to figure out Divine nature. And the analytical, skeptical, industrialized minds will surely claim that it is nonsense to talk about the sort of God Whose nature defies measurement and analysis.

But Paul had something to say about this -

Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile." (I Cor. 3:18-20)

There are, of course, many who, in an attempt to achieve wisdom by appearing foolish, simply become idiots as well as fools, but that's a topic for another post. Actually, it's probably the topic of many posts, old and new. Let me just end this one with Paul's further words (verse 21), "So then, no more boasting about men!"

Oh, and one more thing...

You really need to get the book!

Church in the Village

2009-03-16T08:53:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I wandered into Psychovillage (more details in April 2, 2008 post) and decided to check out a service at Fifth Megachurch Wannabe. I recently heard rumblings that they had revamped their "worship time," and I was interested to see these changes for myself.

Last time I dropped in, the service started with a single song, followed by the pastor welcoming everyone, "especially our visitors," and then an endless droning of announcements. Next came two fast songs. Since we had all been "invited" to stand for these songs, it was easy to slide right into the superficial and, for any visitors, excruciatingly uncomfortable "meet and greet time." We were then allowed to sit so we could sing two slow songs in preparation for the message.

The new format, as I observed yesterday, involves singing two fast songs and two slow songs all in a row with no breaks. Perhaps the intent was to allow a more connected span of time so that people can have the chance to actually focus on God and maybe even to hear from Him.

More likely it was an attempt to move in a more "relevant" or "slick-worship" direction. Or maybe the plan was to shave some length off the service's time-span.

Personally, I think it would have been much more effective if the worship leader had not, in his best imitation Casey Kasem voice, opened the service with the unfortunate words, "Please stand up and join us in our new, uninterrupted four-play."